The Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) Fri­day called on coun­tries in the Amer­i­c­as, in­clud­ing the Caribbean, to strength­en pro­tec­tions for fam­i­lies against the grow­ing dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing of breast-milk sub­sti­tutes and oth­er prod­ucts that may un­der­mine breast­feed­ing.

In a mes­sage ahead of World Breast­feed­ing Week, Au­gust 1-7, PA­HO said while breast­feed­ing re­mains one of the most ef­fec­tive in­ter­ven­tions for pro­tect­ing the health and de­vel­op­ment of in­fants and young chil­dren, the en­vi­ron­ment in which fam­i­lies make feed­ing de­ci­sions has changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly.

It said per­son­al­ized ad­ver­tis­ing on so­cial me­dia, in­flu­encers, al­go­rithms, and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence are cre­at­ing new chal­lenges to en­sur­ing that par­ents and care­givers re­ceive ob­jec­tive, ev­i­dence-based in­for­ma­tion.