Policy Change for Building More Resilient First Food Systems - Plenary 3

Speaker(s):Cecilia Tomori, PhD, MA

Driven by the growing impacts of climate change, emergencies are accelerating and causing extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. Conflict has further fueled crises. Yet, in many settings emergency preparedness and response systems do not have adequate integration of appropriate training or resources for infant feeding emergencies. All infants are vulnerable in an emergency because they are immature and require frequent care and feeding to survive. However, these vulnerabilities are not distributed equally, since in emergencies formula-reliant infants are particularly vulnerable to infection, illness and death. Breastfed infants have a safe and secure source of nutrition, but they need supportive conditions to enable them to successfully continue, especially in a time like an emergency where families may struggle with many challenges. This talk will examine some of these core challenges and whether they are appropriately considered in the policy landscape via multiple examples. A systematic approach to preparedness and response policies will be applied to examine gaps and to fuel effective advocacy efforts to ensure that all infants’ needs are addressed. Ultimately, this will point the way towards policy change that ensures that lactation is considered as a key strategy towards more resilient first food systems.