"Education for life" is the theme of the eighth annual World Breastfeeding Week which began yesterday and runs until Saturday in 120 countries around the world.
The week is endorsed by the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children's Fund, and this year's theme is designed to promote the integration of breastfeeding information into all levels of the education system.
The WHO's director general, Ms Gro Harlem Brundtland, said the education-based approach aimed at reinforcing the concept of breastfeeding as "the normal way to feed babies" and re-establishing it where it had declined.
She added: " Girls from childhood and on into adolescence should be positively oriented towards breastfeeding through both their life experience and formal education. Breastfeeding mothers should be encouraged to let children of all ages, but particularly girls, observe how they feed and care for their infants."