By Naomi Bromberg Bar-Yam, PhD
This year’s World Breastfeeding Week (WBW) theme—Prioritize Breastfeeding: Create Sustainable Support Systems—calls out for clarity and reflection.
Let’s start with prioritize. Breastfeeding is how babies eat; human milk is what they eat. To prioritize breastfeeding means building life around it—employment, childcare, community, family. When breastfeeding is prioritized, it is normalized. And when it is normalized, the policies and structures that support it begin to fall into place.
Now let’s consider create sustainable support systems. Each of us—every person, every institution—has a role in building and maintaining the structures that help breastfeeding thrive:
- Friends and family
- Communities
- Employers and unions
- Legislators
- Health care providers and systems
- Emergency preparedness agencies
- And more
A living tapestry of sustainable support
When breastfeeding is truly prioritized, support becomes embedded in daily life. We don’t just create support systems—we become the support system. That’s what makes it sustainable. It becomes woven into the fabric of our society—a living, evolving tapestry made of many threads and many hands.
Some threads are soft: moments of encouragement, a seat offered, a meal cooked. Others are strong and structural: parental leave policies, hospital protocols, milk banks, workplace accommodations. Woven together, these threads create something far more enduring than any one strand—a fabric that supports, warms, and holds.
Even in the most supportive society, some families will face medical or logistical breastfeeding challenges. That’s why we have trained providers—IBCLCs and breastfeeding medicine specialists. That’s why we have galactagogues and donor milk banks, and why mothers have always shared their milk with others. These supports are part of the weave, too—reinforcing the system where and when it’s needed most.
Moving the needle forward
Becoming a sustainable breastfeeding support system is hard work, and it cannot be achieved alone. But change begins with each of us. Between WBW 2025 and WBW 2026, what will you do to “be the change you want to see happen”? Together, we can move the needle forward—stitch by stitch, thread by thread—strengthening the tapestry of support that holds us all.
We are not alone. Breastfeeding support is an integral part of broader social support. Reasonable paid parental leave strengthens breastfeeding and sends a clear message: our workplaces and our society value families. Welcoming breastfeeding wherever mothers are allowed to be affirms that breastfeeding is how babies eat—and that mothers belong everywhere.
Creating sustainable systems that support breastfeeding also contributes to welcoming children, elders, disabled people, and other marginalized community members. The same forces that undermine breastfeeding often undermine care, connection, and equity more broadly. But collaboration is powerful. The breastfeeding movement has sparked broader social change before. We can do so again.
So, between now and WBW 2026, how will we expand the tent—inviting others in, connecting across movements, and weaving a truly sustainable support system for all?
Naomi Bromberg Bar-Yam, PhD, has been working in maternal and child health for 35 years as an educator, researcher, advocate, and writer. In addition to serving on the board of Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition, she is past president of the Human Milk Banking Association of North America (HMBANA) and is the founding director emerita of Mothers’ Milk Bank Northeast, which provides safe donor milk to hospitals and families throughout the northeastern US. Learn more about her on her LactSpeak profile.
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