As Antigua and Barbuda prepares to mark its 2026 Breastfeeding Awareness Week from September 21 to 25, the nation’s leading Sir Lester Bird Medical Centre (SLBMC) has publicly reaffirmed its long-standing dedication to protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding to give every newborn a healthy foundation for life.
Ann-Marie Browne-Isaac, who chairs the medical centre’s dedicated Breastfeeding Committee, outlined the facility’s ongoing core initiatives tied to its Baby Friendly Hospital designation. She highlighted that SLBMC has consistently prioritized two evidence-based practices: facilitating breastfeeding within the first critical hour after birth, and fully implementing the World Health Organization and UNICEF-endorsed Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding across all maternity wards.
Beyond hospital walls, Browne-Isaac emphasized that meaningful support for breastfeeding mothers cannot end at discharge. A collective, cross-sector effort is required to build a supportive ecosystem, with key roles for national government agencies, local employers, educational institutions, family units, and community organizations. Each stakeholder has a unique part to play in removing barriers that often force mothers to stop breastfeeding earlier than recommended, she explained.
Browne-Isaac also outlined the far-reaching collective benefits of expanding robust breastfeeding support. Beyond individual health outcomes, stronger systems reduce long-term health and financial pressures for families, cut rates of workplace absenteeism as children experience fewer acute illnesses, and ease strain on local public health systems. From a clinical perspective, she added that long-term breastfeeding is linked to proven reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancers in birthing parents, as well as lower rates of childhood obesity and type 1 and 2 diabetes in children.
In a formal statement, SLBMC confirmed that its ongoing work centers on three core pillars: expanding public and clinical education around breastfeeding, fostering cross-sector collaboration to strengthen support systems, and reframing public conversations around breastfeeding to normalize the practice and reduce stigma for nursing mothers. The institution closed by calling on all public and private institutions, workplaces, families, and community partners to join in the effort, to help all mothers in Antigua and Barbuda continue breastfeeding with confidence, regardless of their personal circumstances.