Breastfeeding is a natural, learnt behaviour — the most cost-effective way to give a child a healthy start in life.
Breastfeeding’s benefits range from protecting against infections to reducing infant mortality. The World Health Organization estimates that optimal breastfeeding practices could save over 820,000 children each year.
And yet, just 38 per cent of Canadian infants are exclusively breastfed in their first six months — well below the WHO’s target of 60 per cent.
This low rate reflects gaps in Canadian health policy, coordination and accountability. If Canada wants to improve its breastfeeding rates, it should participate in the World Breastfeeding Trends Initiative (WBTi).
Launched 22 years ago, the WBTi helps countries assess and benchmark progress in implementing the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF), a strategy developed by WHO and UNICEF.
The WBTi assessment evaluates how well governments support breastfeeding through their laws, policies and public health systems.
To date, 100 countries have completed the independent assessment, with some having done so multiple times to track progress in improving their policy environments.
Yet, the WBTi has never been done in Canada.
Currently, breastfeeding support, promotion and data monitoring vary significantly across the country, as do parental leave policies, lactation support and access to maternity care.
The consequences are clear. According to Health Canada, average breastfeeding initiation rates are 91 per cent after birth, but fall sharply within the first month postpartum.
Many mothers report the top reasons for stopping breastfeeding early are difficulties with breastfeeding and perceived insufficient milk supply.
One in three newborns in Canada is also born to parents who do not have access to paid, protected time with a parent — a factor that possibly also contributes to Canada’s suboptimal breastfeeding rates.
A WBTi assessment could help change this trajectory.
An assessment would enable Canada to align with international standards, identify policy gaps and establish a roadmap for action.
The process is straightforward: partners and knowledge holders — including governments, researchers, health professionals, Indigenous leaders and advocates — collaborate to gather data, analyze policies and assess performance across 15 indicators. The outcome is a coloured scorecard and detailed report with specific, actionable, evidence-based recommendations.
A completed WBTi assessment scorecard is associated with meaningful change. At least 18 high-income countries have completed the assessment. The United Kingdom recently completed its second assessment, with its findings presented this July in Parliament.
In the same month, the WHO hosted a webinar showcasing how WBTi assessments are helping countries align with global nutrition and health targets. Canada was noticeably absent.
The good news is that momentum is building in Canada. A core group of eight leaders — including lactation consultants, nutritionists, academic researchers, a representative from First Nations, Inuit, and Métis, the Breastfeeding Committee for Canada, and La Leche League Canada — have begun work on the country’s first WBTi assessment.
WBTi Canada marked its first milestone on Oct. 2, with a national webinar to officially launch the project.
This event marks not only a historic step in Canada but also an opportunity for partners and knowledge holders nationwide to help build a stronger, more equitable breastfeeding support system.
Most importantly, it reaffirms our responsibility to give all Canadian children the healthiest possible start, no matter where they are born.
We must not fall behind. A WBTi assessment is more than a bureaucratic exercise. It is a roadmap to accountability, health equity and healthier futures for Canadian children.
This article was authored by: Stephanie George, Jennifer Abbass-Dick, Isabelle Michaud-Létourneau, Haileigh Robb, Jen Peddlesden, Elisabeth Sterken, Laurie Twells, Gulpiya Uygur
I am 70 and breastfed both my children (back in the 80s) for 9 months and 36 months !!!
My perception of the reluctance for so many women to forego nursing is that breasts are viewed as sexual rather than feeding appendages. So sad.
It is unfortunate that the benefits to the mother are not made more known. Those are faster weight loss, restoration of the uterus, and bonding with one’s infant. Breastmilk can also be pumped for bottle feeding by the father or another person. Not to mention the ease of going out or travelling with the baby without having to add bottles, etc. to the load. I’m sure I’m missing some but these are great benefits in addition to those for the child. I was unable to convince any of my women friends/relatives to breastfeed and that is my failure. Women (and men) need more support in this area of being fully performing humans. I loved nursing both my children and wish more parents were comfortable/in favour of the concept.
My wife breastfed our four children for about six months and our daughter breastfed her three daughters about the same time period. Two of our daughter-in-laws also breastfed their children. So I guess our family is the outlier in Canada??
Both I and my wife were breastfed as babies, which seemed to be more common 60-80 years ago…
“History Box” on Facebook posted an article that revealed amazing qualities of breast milk way beyond what we all assume. The scientist who made the incredible discoveries was Katie Hinde. Here’s the article…Hope it’s not too big.
She thought she was studying milk.
What she found was a conversation.
In 2008, Katie Hinde was standing in a primate research lab in California, staring at data that refused to behave.
She was analyzing breast milk from rhesus macaque mothers—hundreds of samples, thousands of measurements. And a pattern kept appearing that made no sense under the old rules of science.
Mothers with sons produced milk richer in fat and protein.
Mothers with daughters produced more volume, with different nutrient ratios.
This wasn’t random.
It was customized.
Her male colleagues waved it off.
Measurement error.
Noise.
Coincidence.
But Katie trusted the numbers.
And the numbers were saying something radical:
Milk isn’t just food.
It’s information.
For decades, science treated breast milk like gasoline—calories in, growth out. Simple fuel. But if that were true, why would it change based on a baby’s sex?
Katie kept digging.
She analyzed milk from 250+ mothers across 700+ sampling events. And the story deepened.
First-time, younger mothers produced milk with fewer calories—but much higher cortisol, the stress hormone. Babies who drank it grew faster… and became more vigilant, more anxious, less confident.
The milk wasn’t just building bodies.
It was shaping temperament.
Then came the discovery that stunned even skeptics.
When a baby nurses, tiny amounts of saliva travel backward through the nipple into the mother’s breast tissue. That saliva carries signals about the baby’s immune status.
If the baby is getting sick, the mother’s body detects it.
Within hours, her milk changes.
White blood cells surge.
Macrophages multiply.
Targeted antibodies appear.
And when the baby recovers?
The milk returns to baseline.
It wasn’t coincidence.
It was call and response.
The baby’s spit tells the mother what’s wrong.
The mother’s body makes exactly the medicine needed.
A biological dialogue—ancient, precise, invisible to science for centuries.
In 2011, Katie joined Harvard and looked at the wider research landscape.
What she found was unsettling.
There were twice as many studies on erectile dysfunction as on breast milk composition.
The first food every human ever consumed—the substance that shaped our species—had been largely ignored.
So Katie did something bold.
She started a blog with a deliberately provocative name:
“Mammals Suck… Milk!”
Within a year, it had over a million readers. Parents. Doctors. Scientists. People asking questions research had skipped.
And the discoveries kept coming:
• Milk changes by time of day (fat peaks mid-morning)
• Foremilk differs from hindmilk (nursing longer delivers richer milk)
• Human milk contains 200+ oligosaccharides babies can’t digest—because they exist to feed beneficial gut bacteria
• Every mother’s milk is as unique as a fingerprint
In 2017, Katie brought the story to a TED stage, watched by millions.
In 2020, she explained it to the world in Netflix’s Babies.
Today, at Arizona State University’s Comparative Lactation Lab, Dr. Katie Hinde continues uncovering how milk shapes human development from the very first hours of life—informing NICU care, improving formula design, and reshaping public health policy worldwide.
The implications are staggering.
Milk has been evolving for 200 million years—longer than dinosaurs walked the Earth.
What science dismissed as “simple nutrition” is actually one of the most sophisticated communication systems biology has ever produced.
Katie Hinde didn’t just study milk.
She revealed that the most ancient form of nourishment is also the most intelligent—a living, responsive conversation between two bodies, shaping who we become before we ever speak.
All because one scientist refused to accept that half the story was “measurement error.”
Sometimes the biggest revolutions begin by listening to what everyone else ignores.