2.0 Protection of Breastfeeding [Domain 1]
Society is not a bystander – everyone must protect the environment in which women and parents feed their infants and demand the appropriate care, support and protection of rights. The research findings reveal the priorities of formula milk companies and how far they are prepared to go to achieve their sales and market growth. In response, we must be clear about the type of world that we stand for; what is ethical and acceptable; and where concern for our children and their futures guide and prioritize our actions today.
The International Code and WHA resolutions
In this topic, you will learn about the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent WHA resolutions (International Code). Your knowledge of the International Code will make a difference even if your role is exclusively at the bedside, clinic, or home serving expectant and new parents. Understanding the International Code will help support your daily work based on best practices.
To understand why breastfeeding needs to be protected and how the infant feeding industry uses exploitative marketing read the 28 April 2022 news release WHO reveals shocking extent of exploitative formula milk marketing. You might also find the 2021 article below of interest to share with colleagues on how the infant feeding industry uses tricks and deceit to sell its products.
If your lives were embittered as mine is, by seeing day after day this massacre of the innocents by unsuitable feeding, then I believe you would feel as I do that misguided propaganda on infant feeding should be punished as the most criminal form of sedition, and that those deaths should be regarded as murder."
Dr. Cicely Williams, M.D., MRCP - "Milk and Murder," Singapore 1939
Subsequent relevant WHA resolutions
Subsequent relevant World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions carry the same status as the International Code. They help clarify and strengthen the Code and since 2016 also provide guidance on the appropriate marketing of complementary foods.
The WHA resolution 69.9 called for an end to the inappropriate promotion of all foods for infants and young children up to the age of 36 months. This was followed by the development of a document and implementation guide - Guidance on Ending the Inappropriate Promotion of Foods for Infants and Young Children, which encourages Member States to develop stronger national policies that protect children under the age of 36 months from marketing practices that could be detrimental to their health.
National implementation of the International Code
The Code forms the foundation of the protection of breastfeeding. Without it, investments in breastfeeding promotion to the public and the training of healthcare providers are eroded by the inappropriate promotion of breastmilk substitutes and conflicts of interest among healthcare workers.

Marketing of breast milk substitutes: national implementation of the international code, status report 2022
The Code remains as relevant and important today as when it was adopted in 1981, if not more so. The Code is an essential part of creating an overall environment that enables mothers to make the best possible decisions about infant and young child feeding, based on impartial information and free of commercial influences, and to be fully supported in doing so. Protecting the health of children and their mothers from continued misleading marketing practices should be seen by countries as a public health priority and human rights obligation.

https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240048799.
© World Health Organization 2020
"While promotion of breastmilk substitutes using unethical marketing practices continues throughout the world, many countries are fighting back...The global COVID-19 pandemic created additional opportunities for manufacturers of breastmilk substitutes to exploit public fears and to promote their brands and products...32 countries have measures in place that are substantially aligned with the Code, seven more countries than reported in the 2020 report...Digital marketing platforms enable advertisers to reach beyond national borders, adding further challenges to enforcement of national laws...The number of countries with legal measures on at least some provisions of the Code now stands at 144. Legislation enacted in the past five years is generally more closely aligned with the Code than older legislation."
"This report provides updated information on the status of implementing the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and subsequent relevant World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions (“the Code”) in countries. It presents the legal status of the Code, including to what extent its provisions have been incorporated in national legal measures. Given the important role of health workers in protecting pregnant women, mothers and their infants from the inappropriate promotion of BMS, the 2020 report highlights specific provisions considered to be particularly instrumental in addressing and eliminating the promotion of breast-milk substitutes, feeding bottles and teats to health workers and in health facilities, and provides an extensive analysis of legal measures taken to prohibit promotion to health workers and in health facilities."