World Breastfeeding Week is a global campaign to raise awareness and inspire action to support breastfeeding. It launched in 1992 and is celebrated August 1-7 every year. This year’s theme, Breastfeeding for a Sustainable Start in Life: Strengthen What Works, focuses on the progress and evaluation of breastfeeding’s impact on nutrition, food security, and poverty reduction.
World Breastfeeding Week also kicks off National Breastfeeding Month. The 2026 National Breastfeeding Month theme, RISE: Resilience, Interdependence, Self-Determination, Empowerment, with each word highlighting one of the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee’s strengths in advocating for breastfeeding support for families.
Help Promote WIC’s Breastfeeding Education and Support
World Breastfeeding Week and National Breastfeeding Month provide an opportunity to raise awareness of WIC’s breastfeeding support and peer counseling programs. As part of its mission to safeguard the health of families, WIC promotes breastfeeding and supports families along the way, offering access to educational resources, lactation specialists, peer counselors, free breast pumps and other supplies based on needs. Breastfeeding participants also receive a larger and more varied food package.
The most recent WIC Breastfeeding Data Local Agency Report underscores the impact of WIC’s commitment to breastfeeding. The report shows the percentage of breastfed infants enrolled in WIC has increased every year since 2010, reflecting the quality of support and services that WIC state and local agencies provide. In New York State, 56 percent of WIC’s infants were fully or partially breastfed in 2024, compared to the national average of 42 percent!
Please join us in celebrating World Breastfeeding Week and National Breastfeeding Month. Visit our WIC Resource Center for videos, social media content, and other outreach resources that you can use to promote WIC’s breastfeeding support.
WIC Local Agency Events
WIC local agencies in New York are also celebrating with outreach events, ranging from fairs to trivia nights, that will be free and open to the public throughout the month. Click here for a full list of events.
