How Ready Is Mexico to Launch an Effective National Program to Protect, Promote and Support Breastfeeding

In Mexico, the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding in children under 6 months of age has decreased significantly from 22.3% in 1999 to 14.5% in 2012. The deterioration of breastfeeding practices has affected vulnerable groups of women: a) rural women in the southern region of the country, b) those in the lowest tertile of socioeconomic status, c) those with education lower than primary, d) those without access to health services or without paid employment. Currently, Mexico does not have a National Breastfeeding Program. The objective of this project was to assess the enabling environment to effectively scale up breastfeeding programs in Mexico using the Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly Index (BBFI), which is comprised of 54 evidence based benchmarks reflecting 8 submetrics: advocacy (4 benchmarks); political will (3 benchmarks); legislation and policy (10 benchmarks), funding and resources (3 benchmarks), training and program delivery (17 benchmarks), promotion (3 benchmarks), research and evaluation (10 benchmarks), and coordination, goals and monitoring (3 benchmarks). An 11‐member expert country committee, composed of representatives of the Mexican federal government, civil society and researchers, has met four times to reach consensus on the BBFI subscores and total score in order to make recommendations to policy makers. BBFI submetric score(s) were calculated ranged from 0 (not present) to 3 (strong). Submetrics scores were: 1.3 (moderate) for advocacy; 2 (moderate) for political will; 2.1 (strong) for legislation and policy, 0.5 (weak) for funding and resources, 1.2 (moderate) for training and program delivery, 1.7 (moderate) for promotion, 0.9 (weak) for research and evaluation, and 2 (strong) for coordination, goals and monitoring. The overall BBFI score was 1.4 indicating a potential environment for scaling up breastfeeding programs in Mexico that needs substantial improvement. Findings indicate that it is crucial for civil society to continue engaging in evidence‐based advocacy to foster the political will to secure the funding and resources needed for the establishment of a solid Breastfeeding Protection, Promotion and Support National Strategy in Mexico. This strategy must consider as a priority the training of medical and allied students, health care providers, and breastfeeding paraprofessionals operating at the health facility and community levels. Multi‐level monitoring and evaluation is needed to share information from the local to the national level and to enable proper decision making across the quite fragmented Mexican Health System Support or Funding Information Funded by the Family Larsson‐Rosenquist Foundation.