Expenditures on Strengthening Large Scale Breastfeeding Counseling Programs in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Vietnam

• DOI: 10.1111/mcn.70031
• Publication Date: 2025-04-05T15:20:14Z
• Authors: Tina G. Sanghvi; Rick Homan; Tuan Nguyen; Zeba Mahmud; Marina Nersesyan; Patricia Preware; Edward A. Frongillo; Roger Mathisen

Timely support given to breastfeeding mothers can result in life-saving benefits for both and infants. Progress achieving results from existing efforts improve practices be accelerated with adequate investments effective interventions. We aimed document expenditures incurred by three diverse programs Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Vietnam that demonstrated improved outcomes. Based on expenditure records, we retrospectively calculated annual per participant expenditures. The represent the incremental financial needs of strengthening low- middle-income countries inform budget planning. reached between 400,000 1.2 million pregnant women, infants, annually at an average USD 0.55 1.90 woman infant. largest proportion were training frontline workers delivering interpersonal communication or counseling. These ranged 73.4% total Bangladesh 63.9% Ethiopia 55.1% Vietnam. Management administration 13.3% 19.6% across countries; range planning strategy development was 2.5%-9.9%; materials production 1.1%-15.1%; monitoring 1.7%-18.7%. show cadres facility community deliver counseling a large scale substantial economies scale. Budgetary will differ country due delivery system strengths weaknesses, pre-existing coverage, demand services. study provides basis realistic estimates large-scale programs.