Your studies and enquiries contribute to the Church's supreme effort to journey hand in hand with humanity on its path through temporal realities towards man's great and inexorable transcendent destiny. As scientists you direct your enquiry towards a better understanding of the advantages of breastfeeding for the infant and for the mother. Moreover, in addition to these immunological and nutritional effects, this natural way of feeding can create a bond of love and security between mother and child, and enable the child to assert its presence as a person through interaction with the mother. All of this is obviously a matter of immediate concern to countless women and children, and something which clearly has general importance for every society, rich or poor. One hopes that your studies will serve to heighten public awareness of how much this natural activity benefits the child and helps to create the closeness and maternal bonding so necessary for healthy child development.
Worldwide surveys indicate that two-thirds of mothers still breastfeed, at least to some extent.
But statistics also show that there has been a fall in the number of women who nourish their infants in this way, not only in developed countries where the practice almost has to be reinstituted, but also increasingly in developing countries. This decline is traced to a combination of social factors such as urbanization and the increasing demands placed on women, to health-care policies and practices, and to marketing strategies for alternative forms of nourishment. Yet the overwhelming body of research is in favour of natural feeding rather than its substitutes. In practical terms, what we are saying is that mothers need time, information, and support. So much is expected of women in many societies that time to devote to breastfeeding and early care is not always available.