WABA Global Breastfeeding Partners’ Forum

The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) is organizing the Global Breastfeeding Partners’ Forum (GBPF) on October 17 to 18 in Penang, Malaysia. This two-day forum will have as main theme “Enabling Mothering: Keeping mothers and babies together”, focusing on the expanded Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI)  and maternity protection and support for working women. WABA’s Core Partners, participants and speakers from around the world will be sharing new technical knowledge and programmatic updates in the areas of the expanded BFHI maternity protection. Among the purposes of this meeting is to further collaboration with WABA’s Core Partners and other participants to plan and advance the common vision and strategic direction of the breastfeeding movement.

The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine is a Core Partner and the physicians’ arm of WABA. ABM representatives will be actively participating in this forum looking for strategies to help promote effectively the expanded BFHI among physicians around the world. Physicians are key care providers to increase the BFHI and achieve the Innocenti Declaration goals globally. All ABM physicians should enthusiastically embrace the tenets of the Innocenti Declaration as the premium policy for infant and child health promotion and a necessary public health strategy around the world.

We invite all ABM members to sign the ABM/WABA Physician’s Pledge to Promote, Protect and Support Breastfeeding. The Physician’s Pledge is a vehicle for all physicians to declare their support for the Innocenti Declaration Goals and to “go on record” as a breastfeeding-friendly practitioner. Please fax your signed Physician’s Pledge to ABM at its USA headquarters, 914-740-2101, or mailed to: Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, 140 Huguenot Street, 3rd floor, New Rochelle, New York 10801, USA.

Ana M. Parrilla-Rodríguez, MD, MPH, is a public health physician, breastfeeding researcher and clinician, and associate professor of the Maternal and Child Program at the University of Puerto Rico School of Public Health. She is a member and a Fellow of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine.
Posts on this blog reflect the opinions of individual ABM members, not the organization as a whole.