Dylan Walters

The cost of not breastfeeding in Southeast Asia

Rates of exclusive breastfeeding are slowly increasing, but remain suboptimal globally despite the health and economic benefits. This study estimates the costs of not breastfeeding across seven countries in Southeast Asia and presents a cost-benefit analysis of a modeled comprehensive breastfeeding strategy in Viet Nam, based on a large programme. There have been very few such studies previously for low- and middle-income countries. The estimates used published data on disease prevalence and breastfeeding patterns for the seven countries, supplemented by information on healthcare costs from representative institutions. Modelling of costs of not breastfeeding used estimated effects obtained from systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Modelling of cost-benefit for Viet Nam used programme data on costs combined with effects from a large-scale cluster randomized breastfeeding promotion intervention with controls. This study found that over 12 400 preventable child and maternal deaths per year in the seven countries could be attributed to inadequate breastfeeding. The economic benefits associated with potential improvements in cognition alone, through higher IQ and earnings, total

An investment framework for nutrition : reaching the global targets for stunting, anemia, breastfeeding, and wasting

1.6 billion annually. The loss exceeds 0.5% of Gross National Income in the country with the lowest exclusive breastfeeding rate (Thailand). The potential savings in health care treatment costs (

Breastfeeding in the 21st century

0.3 billion annually) from reducing the incidence of diarrhoea and pneumonia could help offset the cost of breastfeeding promotion. Based on the data available and authors’ assumptions, investing in a national breastfeeding promotion strategy in Viet Nam could result in preventing 200 child deaths per year and generate monetary benefits of US

An investment framework for nutrition in Afghanistan : estimating the costs, impacts, and cost-effectiveness of expanding high-impact nutrition interventions to reduce stunting and invest in the early years

2.39 for every US

The annual cost of not breastfeeding in Indonesia: the economic burden of treating diarrhea and respiratory disease among children (< 24mo) due to not breastfeeding according to recommendation

1, or a 139% return on investment. These encouraging results suggest that there are feasible and affordable opportunities to accelerate progress towards achieving the Global Nutrition Target for exclusive breastfeeding by 2025.

Financing Needs to Reach the Four Global Nutrition Targets: Stunting, Anemia, Breastfeeding, and Wasting

The report estimates the costs impacts and financing scenarios to achieve the World Health Assembly global nutrition targets for stunting anemia in women exclusive breastfeeding and the scaling up of the treatment of severe wasting among young children. To reach these four targets the world needs

Reaching the Global Target for Breastfeeding

70 billion over 10 years to invest in high-impact nutrition-specific interventions. This investment would have enormous benefits: 65 million cases of stunting and 265 million cases of anemia in women would be prevented in 2025 as compared with the 2015 baseline. In addition at least 91 million more children would be treated for severe wasting and 105 million additional babies would be exclusively breastfed during the first six months of life over 10 years. Altogether achieving these targets would avert at least 3.7 million child deaths. Every dollar invested in this package of interventions would yield between

Promoting equitable global health research: a policy analysis of the Canadian funding landscape

4 and

An Investment Framework for Nutrition in Afghanistan

35 in economic returns making investing in early nutrition one of the best value-for-money development actions. Although some of the targets -- especially those for reducing stunting in children and anemia in women -- are ambitious and will require concerted efforts in financing scale-up and sustained commitment recent experience from several countries suggests that meeting these targets is feasible. These investments in the critical 1000 day window of early childhood are inalienable and portable and will pay lifelong dividends -- not only for children directly affected but also for us all in the form of more robust societies -- that will drive future economies.

An investment framework for meeting global nutrition target for breastfeeding

The breastfeeding Series papers by Cesar Victora and colleagues and Nigel Rollins and colleagues are a notable contribution to the maternal and child nutrition fi eld. Both papers comment that the World Health Assembly’s target aiming to increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding globally in the first 6 months up to 50% by 2025 is achievable, if not unambitious. However, the flaws of the target indicator itself were not addressed. Pullum argued that the commonly used 0–5 month exclusive breastfeeding indicator, which accounts for any infants in that age range, is misaligned with the WHO and UNICEF recommendation of breastfeeding all children exclusively until 6 months. This discrepancy might infl ate the perception of breastfeeding levels nationally and globally. We know that rates decline rapidly between 0 months and 5 months, thus the target as it stands is eff ectively aiming for a fraction of children being exclusively breastfed until 6 months rather than the majority. In Ethiopia for example, the rate of exclusive breastfeeding until 6 months was 23%, much lower than the reported 52% figure for 0–5 months. We recommend that alternatives for computing the percentage of infants exclusively breastfed until 6 months, with existing data from the Demographic and Health Services and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, be explored or more accurate proxies be used. This skewed global nutrition target can mislead policy makers and risks undermining the need to invest in breastfeeding strategies. The world needs a clear breastfeeding target that translates to meaningful improvement in infa nt and young child nutrition.