UNITED NATIONS – Despite its many lifesaving benefits breastfeeding still struggles to compete with the marketing used by the multi-billion dollar baby formula industry, according to a new report published this week.

“Aggressive and inappropriate marketing of breast-milk substitutes, and other food products that compete with breastfeeding, continues to undermine efforts to improve breastfeeding rates,” a new report published this week by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) found.

Considering the multitude of benefits associated with breastfeeding it is confusing to find that the rates of breastfeeding worldwide are worryingly low.

“Globally, nearly two out of three infants are not exclusively breastfed for the recommended 6 months – a rate that has not improved in two decades,” the report found.

However, breastfeeding could benefit from better promotion. An increase in breastfeeding rates could save 800,000 child lives every year, according to a major Lancet study published earlier this year.

Breastfeeding also benefits mothers. An increase in breastfeeding could prevent 20,000 deaths from breast cancer every year, the study also found.

Perhaps even more convincingly, the Lancet concluded that breastfed babies grow up to be smarter, gaining an additional three IQ points.

Breastfeeding can protect babies in developing countries from being underweight, or suffering from life threatening diarrhoea. Infant formula can be particularly dangerous when mixed with dirty drinking water or not mixed exactly according to instructions and it also lacks the important immune boosting properties of breast milk. Infant formula is also more expensive and creates more waste than breast milk due to its packaging.

At the other end of the spectrum being breastfed also reduces the risk of diabetes and obesity later in the life, the study also found.