Guidance documents from 33 countries on newborn care for infants whose mothers are diagnosed with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 were assessed for alignment with WHO recommendations, revealing considerable inconsistencies.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers and practitioners must learn from mistakes made during the HIV pandemic, when breastfeeding was undermined through isolating infants from their mothers, and formula feeding resulted in more infant deaths than the disease.

Not breastfeeding leads to more than half a million child deaths annually and costs the world economy up to US$1 billion a day.

Breastfeeding is one of the best buys in global health to improve social, health, and economic development outcomes. Globally, improving breastfeeding practices could save more than 820,000 lives annually—87 percent of them infants under six months of age.

A billion dollars and two thousand lives, every day. This impactful study, which is the foundation for Alive and Thrive’s online tool, examines the human and economic costs of not breastfeeding.