National Breastfeeding Week 2024
October 1, 2024
National Breastfeeding Week is celebrated on October 1-7 in Canada. Every year the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) selects a theme for World Breastfeeding Week. This year WABA is showcasing the need to improve breastfeeding support to reduce inequalities that exist in our society. The World Breastfeeding Week 2024 theme is “Closing the Gap: Breastfeeding Support for All”.
National Breastfeeding Week is an opportunity to advocate for improved breastfeeding support for families in Canada. Every day our society faces inequalities affecting breastfeeding. Indigenous and Black families, as well as families living in rural and remote areas are particularly faced with more challenges to meet their infant feeding goals. A gap exists when there is a discrepancy between the support provided to breastfeeding families and current evidence-based practices. Gaps occur for many reasons including challenges within healthcare facilities, limited resources in certain communities, and workplace practices to name a few. The social determinants of health also impact care and can create gaps. Inequalities related to race, gender, and other factors such as socioeconomic status, education and age affect many perinatal families. The Health Unit is committed to ensuring that no family is left behind.
The Health Unit provides many different levels of support for families in our community to help address these inequities, all free of charge. Prenatal education can be provided through our online prenatal program and telephone support is available to families with any questions. For families looking for additional support, the Healthy Babies Healthy Children Program is a home visiting program available to prenatal and postpartum families in Ontario. Families will receive guidance, information, and resources, and will be supported in connecting with other community resources. In January of 2024, the Health Unit launched the new Prenatal Breastfeeding Information sessions, available both virtually and in-person across our region. These services help families to make informed choices about feeding their baby, feel more prepared for the arrival of their baby, and help families to know where they can go for support with infant feeding after their baby arrives.
Free Infant Feeding Clinics are also available in 5 locations across Leeds, Grenville, and Lanark. Here, families will receive one-on-one support to help them meet their infant feeding goals. They will be supported with learning how to feed their baby, learning their baby’s feeding cues, recognizing the signs that their baby is feeding well, supporting them with any breastfeeding challenges, and having any of their questions answered. The Health Unit is committed to supporting all families to feed their babies in a safe and nurturing way.
Beyond our healthcare system, workplaces that support breastfeeding and milk expression are important in the provision of breastfeeding support. Additionally, a welcoming atmosphere for breastfeeding in public places and inclusion of comfortable spaces for breastfeeding and milk expression in the community provide further layers of support. National Breastfeeding Week 2024 asks individuals, health care facilities, and organizations to identify the gaps in breastfeeding support and take action to make breastfeeding easier for every person who wants to breastfeed. (Baby-Friendly Initiative Ontario)
Learn more about how the Health Unit supports families to reach their feeding goals by visiting the Infant Feeding section of our website.
You can also call 1-800-660-5853 or follow LGLHealthUnit on Facebook and X or lglhealthunit.z on Instagram.
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