The Lancet Series on Breastfeeding

‘The scaling up of breastfeeding to a near universal level could prevent 823,000 annual deaths in children younger than 5 years and 20,000 annual deaths from breast cancer’ (Victora et al 2016:476).

This is the finding of the first part ofThe Lancet Series, which is a timely summary of the value of breastfeeding in reducing mortality and morbidity as well as addressing inequality globally (Victoraet al2016). In view of the economic and environmental costs of low breastfeeding rates and the ability of relatively low cost interventions to enable women to breastfeed for longer, it makes a convincing case for governments and civil society to improve investment in breastfeeding.