Despite a more creative approach, a wider array of communication tools, and a willingness to spend more money, health authorities everywhere recognise that the battle to get the modern woman to breastfeed more is an uphill one.

Not only are mothers growing more conscious about their physical appearance, but more women are being forced to work and so have less time to spend breastfeeding their babies.

Sounding somewhat more desperate, as the globe marks World Breastfeeding Week 2026 this week, the regional Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) has issued a serious warning: That increasingly sophisticated digital marketing of breast milk substitutes is influencing infant-feeding decisions.

PAHO is using the week, which runs from August 1 to 7, to urge countries to strengthen protections for families by going for stronger regulation and monitoring of online advertising.

Jamaica shifted its National Breastfeeding Week from August to the third week of September to avoid clashing with national Emancipation and Independence celebrations, but local health authorities are no less concerned about how much harder it is getting to promote its central message of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life with the aid of community and workplace support systems.

Breastfeeding remains one of the most effective interventions for protecting the health and development of infants and young children, PAHO says. However, the environment in which families make feeding decisions has changed dramatically.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, only 43 per cent of infants are exclusively breastfed during their first six months of life, well below the global target of 60 per cent by 2030. PAHO suggests that this gap is driven by multiple factors, including an increasingly sophisticated digital environment that can influence infant-feeding decisions.

“Personalised advertising on social media, influencers, algorithms, and artificial intelligence are creating new challenges to ensuring that parents and caregivers receive objective, evidence-based information,” it wrote in a just-released press statement.

Authorities are universal in their message that breastfeeding provides optimal nutrition for infants, strengthens their immune systems, reduces the risk of illness, and supports healthy growth and development, while also offers significant health benefits for mothers.

The belief is that many of these marketing strategies operate largely out of public view, with entities increasingly using digital tools to target pregnant women, new mothers, and other caregivers through social media promotions, influencer endorsements, and advertising embedded across digital platforms.

Only 45 per cent of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have adopted supporting measures, and only two countries — Brazil and Argentina — have achieved substantial alignment with the code.

Regional monitoring identified potential violations of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes across social media platforms, websites, and other digital channels, where most of the advertising reviewed was found.

The challenge will not ease any time soon as marketing and promotion of commercial milk formula products are expected to grow, not wane.