Positively Green

World Breastfeeding Week runs each year from 1st to 7th August to celebrate, promote and engage individuals in the topic of breastfeeding. The theme this year focuses on environment and climate change and has the tagline: ‘create sustainable support systems’. Encouraging and supporting any breastfeeding (where this is the preference of the family) helps reduce environmental harm and aligns with living sustainably within the planet’s ecological limits. Breastfeeding itself requires no factories, packaging, transportation, or waste. Breast milk even adapts dynamically to environmental factors, including weather conditions and local pathogens, providing uniquely efficient and tailored nutrition despite the impacts of climate change. Commercial milk formula (CMF) production on the other hand is a resource-intensive process involving dairy farming, manufacturing, packaging, and global distribution, as well as greenhouse gas emissions from dairy cows and waste from single-use packaging. CMF products, including infant and follow-on formula milk, are predominantly dairy based- the dairy industry requires vast amounts of land and produces a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions, with each kilogram of CMF produced generating between 11 and 14kg of carbon dioxide. CMF products are vulnerable to food chain supply issues and food scarcity, itself often caused by climate change; climate change threatens food production worldwide, contributing to food price inflation. Extreme weather, fuelled by climate change, causes short-term disruptions in crop growing and long-term changes in regional growing conditions.

 

CMF products also rely on the parents having the financial capabilities to maintain its purchase as well as access to clean water and sterilisation equipment, which could be difficult for mothers living in poverty or in developing/war-torn countries. As a result, academics position raising awareness of breastfeeding as a social justice issue as well as that of a human and planetary health issue: some mothers are especially vulnerable to misleading information about breast milk and can fall into the traps of CMF marketing companies who encourage them to purchase their products. By developing breastfeeding-friendly communities and services, we can help to protect both public health and the health of our planet.

The Maternity department at UHP has their own Infant Feeding Team that works hard to support people in both the antenatal and postnatal period to help support each family’s individual feeding journey to be sustainable for them. They work closely with colleagues in Public Health Nursing, Family Hubs and in voluntary organisations such as the volunteers. 

The maternity Infant Feeding Team also support colleagues returning to work. We have had several staff members across UHP come forward to support patients and colleagues with their feeding journeys over the past few years. We would like to create some trust wide UHP Breastfeeding Champions to further expand and support this, and we'll be visiting departments w/c 4th Aug. 

 

If you would like to become a Breastfeeding Champion in your workplace please contact Aimee Miller, Infant Feeding Lead for Maternity. 

 

Sources: 

• WBW 2025: Why Breastfeeding Must Be at the Heart of Sustainability Support Systems 

• Climate-smart infant feeding part 1 the interconnection of environment, climate change, and infant nutrition

• The Climate Crisis and Breastfeeding: Opportunities for Resilience. Elizabeth Cerceo, MD, FACP, FHM1 , Karen Saxer, DNP, CNM , Lauren Grossman, MD2, Kathleen Shapley-Quinn, MD3, and Lori Feldman-Winter, MD, MPH1

• Human milk: A win-win-win for health, sustainability, and economics? Field exchange issue 72, April 2024. Go to Field exchange publications site  www.ennonline.net/fex