# Breastfeeding

Care topic · id `maternal:breastfeeding` · Maternal & Newborn Atlas · release `c7fb95f1d15a7d13` (public)

> General information from published sources, not medical advice, and not reviewed by clinicians. Check the cited source before relying on anything here.

The atlas's own text and curation may be reused under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/): credit the atlas, and do not use it commercially. See the atlas About page. Text quoted from a source stays under that source's own terms, given as the source's reuse\_basis. The atlas's reuse terms do not cover it. The downloads list each quotation with its source in third\_party\_quotations.

Browse, life stage: Postpartum; Newborn; Infant follow-up  
Browse, care area: Breastfeeding and lactation  

## In plain language

Feeding a baby with milk from the mother's breast, usually directly from the breast. MedlinePlus says breastfeeding offers many benefits to the baby and may also help the mother's health, and advises mothers without health problems to try to give breast milk for at least the first six months. Help is available from lactation consultants, and the support itself has been studied.

## Technical summary

A hub for lactation records in this atlas. MedlinePlus and the NIH describe benefits and common questions. Evidence and guidance recorded here: the 2025 US recommendation on counselling to support breastfeeding; the 2017 guideline on support in maternity facilities (Recommendation 1 asks that early and uninterrupted skin-to-skin contact be facilitated and encouraged as soon as possible after birth); the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative; a large breastfeeding promotion trial in Belarus; and the MedlinePlus and NIH safe sleep pages, which list feeding human milk among the steps that lower the risk of SIDS. The recipient is mother and infant; claims keep the two apart. Pages in this atlas on donor milk for very low birth weight infants, breast pumps, mastitis and the international marketing code for breast-milk substitutes sit under this hub. Breastfeeding with specific medicines or illnesses is not covered.

## Connected pages

- Skin-to-skin care, which WHO 2017 Recommendation 1 asks to facilitate after birth: Kangaroo mother care (KMC) (`maternal:kangaroo-mother-care`)
- Filed under this front: Newborn support: warmth, breathing, feeding (`maternal:front-newborn-support`)
- Related to: Postnatal care for the mother (`maternal:postnatal-care`)
- Related to: Mastitis and related breast inflammation during breastfeeding (mother) (`maternal:lactational-mastitis`)
- Related to: Sudden infant death syndrome and sleep-related infant death (`maternal:sudden-unexpected-infant-death`)
- Recommended for this: Breastfeeding support and counselling (`maternal:breastfeeding-support`) [a claim, not a settled fact; see claim `maternal:claim-uspstf-2025-breastfeeding-counselling` and its context]
- Recommended for this: Breastfeeding support and counselling (`maternal:breastfeeding-support`) [a claim, not a settled fact; see claim `maternal:claim-who-2017-breastfeeding-support-recommendation-3` and its context]
- Evaluated for this: Breastfeeding support and counselling (`maternal:breastfeeding-support`) [a claim, not a settled fact; see claim `maternal:claim-probit-breastfeeding-duration-and-exclusivity` and its context]
- Related to: Donor human milk for very low birth weight infants (`maternal:donor-human-milk`)
- Related to: Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative and the Ten Steps (`maternal:baby-friendly-hospital-initiative`)
- Related to: International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (`maternal:who-code-breast-milk-substitutes`)
- Related to: Breast pumps (`maternal:breast-pump`)

## Provenance

Content hash: dd297508ed15e2f679dd139bedcc9a80b95f65e7df4b13a75c7f38ba9f7bc5e9
Last substantive edit: 2026-10-15
Evidence last checked: 2026-10-14