Giving Compass' Take:

· News Deeply talks with Kathleen Pellechia, nutrition knowledge management specialist at Alive & Thrive, about the challenges in promoting exclusive breastfeeding and some strategies that are working to address these issues.

· What are some of the benefits of breastfeeding young children? What is the importance of exclusive breastfeeding?

· A new UN guidance aims to boost exclusive breastfeeding.

News Deeply spoke to Kathleen Pellechia, nutrition knowledge management specialist at Alive & Thrive, on the developments in the field and strategies going forward. Pellechia emphasized the role of developing partnerships, building the capacity of local players and keeping the momentum going beyond World Breastfeeding Week.

News Deeply: When we look at the Global Breastfeeding Scorecard we see that some important gains are being made globally but also that there’s a long way to go when it comes to reaching exclusive breastfeeding goals. Can you talk about some of the major challenges that you see at the moment and also some of the strategies that might be working or gains that are worth highlighting?

Kathleen Pellechia: When we think about exclusive breastfeeding, we’re really thinking about a couple of points. First is early initiation of breastfeeding, having that breastfeeding start within the first hour of the infant’s birth; and I think we’re starting to see, and have been seeing, strides in that area, and it’s making that connection between the hospital, the health clinic, even at home births, making that connection between whether it’s a vaginal birth or a cesarean-section birth, having trained health professionals or birthing aids who are familiar with the practices that can get that infant, that baby, to mom, to start that early initiation of breastfeeding. So that’s the first piece because that sets things in motion.

Read the full article about promoting exclusive breastfeeding by Amruta Byatnal at News Deeply.