Lifesavers · No. 16
Breastfeeding
Bringing breastfeeding close to universal could prevent about 820,000 child deaths every year, roughly one in eight of all deaths under the age of five.
A single-year estimate of preventable deaths from The Lancet's 2016 breastfeeding series, not a cumulative all-time total.
How it saves lives
Breast milk is a living fluid, not just food. It carries antibodies and immune cells that a newborn cannot yet make, and it is clean, warm, and always the right composition. In places without safe water, it also replaces formula that must be mixed with water that may carry disease. Together those effects sharply cut deaths from diarrhoea and pneumonia, the two biggest infectious killers of young children.
The story
For most of history breastfeeding was simply how babies were fed, and its role in survival was invisible because there was no alternative to compare it against. The twentieth-century rise of formula created that comparison, and the results were stark: formula-fed infants in poor settings died more often. In 2016 The Lancet pulled the global evidence together and put a number on the modern gap. Raising breastfeeding to near-universal levels, it found, could prevent about 820,000 child deaths a year, most of them babies under six months. It is one of the largest and cheapest lifesavers there is, and it needs no clinic, no cold chain, and no money.
From the record
About 820,000 child deaths could be prevented annually (about 13 percent of all under-5 child deaths) by improving breastfeeding rates.
Asked often
How many lives does breastfeeding save?
The Lancet's 2016 breastfeeding series estimated that raising breastfeeding to near-universal levels could prevent about 820,000 child deaths every year, around 13 percent of all deaths in children under five.
Why is breastfeeding so protective?
Breast milk carries a mother's antibodies and is free of the contaminated water that can taint formula, which cuts deaths from diarrhoea and pneumonia. The protection is greatest in the first six months, when exclusive breastfeeding is recommended.
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