Chapter 3 Additional World Health Assembly Nutrition Indicators
3.2 PREVALENCE OF EXCLUSIVE BREASTFEEDING DURING THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF LIFE
Exclusive breastfeeding is essential to optimal infant and young child feeding and gives children the best start in life. Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) is when a child receives nothing but breastmilk from birth until 6 months. EBF is one of the WHA’s six global nutrition targets – expecting countries to increase EBF to at least 50 percent by 2025. Nearly all countries in the region have made progress on this indicator, with the prevalence of EBF rising over time (Table 10). However, Oceania has the highest prevalence of EBF. The interpretation should be that Oceania and Southern Asia are currently on track to achieve the WHA target of at least 50 percent EBF. Progress is being made in South-eastern Asia and Eastern Asia but the rate of EBF improvement needs to increase in order to meet the WHA target by 2025. Eastern Asia is off track to meet the WHA target for EBF, as the prevalence in that subregion is decreasing.
TABLE 10.
Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding among infants 0–5 months of age (percent)
2012
2020
World
37.1
43.8
Asia and the Pacific
39.7
45.8
Eastern Asia
28.5
22.0
Oceania excluding Australia and New Zealand
56.9
61.1
South-eastern Asia
33.5
45.1
Southern Asia
47.4
57.0
Note: 2020 values for aggregates are based on the latest data available from 2014 to 2020, except for China where the latest data are from 2013. Please refer to Annex IV for the country coverage of this report. In particular, Central Asia and Western Asia are not included. Source: UNICEF. 2021. Infant and young child feeding. In: UNICEF. New York, USA. Cited 6 April 2022. https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/infant-and-young-child-feeding
In Asia and the Pacific, 21 countries are currently above the target of 50 percent, including eight in Southern Asia, four in South-eastern Asia, seven in Oceania and two in Eastern Asia. (Not every country is shown in Figure 9, as some of them have only one observation.)
FIGURE 9.
Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding among infants 0–5 months of age in Asia and the Pacific by country
