Last updated: January 2026. First published: November 2024.
Breastfeeding policy
All children should have the opportunity to thrive, regardless of where they grow up. The key to this is making sure parents can adequately feed their babies, however they choose to do so.
Good nutrition and health in the very early years play a crucial role in a child’s development and growth and can also contribute to better child health.
To this end, Impact on Urban Health commissioned Bremner & Co to conduct a comprehensive landscape review of breastfeeding in England, aiming to provide an up-to-date picture of current policy and practice, identify barriers to breastfeeding and explore levers of influence.
Our report: Breastfeeding in focus
The Breastfeeding in focus report captures the perspectives of those working in and around breastfeeding and creates a policy and practice landscape of breastfeeding at local and national levels.
The research was cross-sector – it heard from representatives from a variety of organisations informing breastfeeding policies, practices, campaigning, and advocacy. It also heard from industry.
The report concludes with a series of recommendations derived from the interviewees, in the areas of:
policy and leadership
advocacy
influence and coalition building
framing and communications
building an adequate evidence base
funding information provision and
funding place-based interventions.
This range of recommendations reflects how complex the area is, and that there is no single solution that is likely to dramatically change breastfeeding trends.
Symposium: Insights from the sector
On 5th November 2024, we hosted a symposium, with Bremner & Co, to explore the findings and implications of the newly published report, Breastfeeding in Focus: Insights from the Sector. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the policy and practice landscape, highlighting barriers to breastfeeding and identifying key levers for change.
The symposium brought together a diverse group of stakeholders from the breastfeeding sector, including policymakers, practitioners and advocates. We were especially pleased to welcome a significant number of local authorities and health sector representatives, whose insights enriched the discussion. The symposium showcased key insights from the report and provided a platform for participants to engage in thematic workshops and discussions. These sessions aimed to delve deeper into the findings, identify policy priorities, and chart actionable steps to improve access to breastfeeding support and address inequalities in breastfeeding outcomes.
The sector’s shared vision for breastfeeding and infant feeding
The final phase of the programme focused on articulating shared priorities across the breastfeeding sector and setting out a collective vision to support future policy engagement, with equity at its core. Building on the insights and discussions generated through the research and symposium, advocacy groups, practitioners and sector leaders came together to reflect on where their ambitions aligned and articulate what all families should be able to expect from a supportive, equitable infant feeding system.
Convened and coordinated by Bremner & Co, this phase brought organisations together through a series of convening sessions and collaborative drafting. Participants exchanged perspectives on the realities facing families, including how discrimination, stigma, unequal access to skilled support and commercial pressure shape infant feeding experiences and outcomes.
This process led to the co-development of a sector-wide vision for breastfeeding, bringing together shared priorities around equity and inclusion, high-quality and independent support, resilient community-based systems, addressing commercial influence and effective collaboration with government.
The sector’s shared vision provides a common reference point for organisations working in breastfeeding and infant feeding, and for those seeking to reduce inequalities in infant feeding outcomes. You can read the shared vision here: A Breastfeeding and Infant Feeding Vision for the UK (PDF).
Find out more
If you'd like to get involved, contact Carole Coulon (Portfolio Manager).
I think what we've really learned over the last few years is that breastfeeding is just a big jigsaw puzzle. If you just invest in one area, it’s not going to fix things.
Amy BrownProfessor of maternal and child public health, Swansea University
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