IBFAN SEA Breastfeeding Conference

The Landscape Has Changed. Our Response Must Too.

Breastfeeding protection in Southeast Asia is operating in a rapidly changing context. Digital marketing is reshaping how feeding decisions are influenced, climate disruption is testing the readiness of health and humanitarian systems, and long-standing gaps in policy enforcement and system design continue to limit meaningful protection for mothers.

SEABC 2026 is Southeast Asia’s first regional conference to address breastfeeding protection at the scale these challenges demand.

Through thought-provoking plenaries, knowledge-sharing, and regional dialogue, SEABC 2026 will highlight strategies to build safer digital environments, strengthen breastfeeding in disaster preparedness and climate resilience agendas, and advance equity through inclusive workplaces, healthcare systems, and legal protections.

9:00 am - 6:00 pm Al Meroz Hotel Bangkok

When AI and influencers are replacing clinicians

For many families, social media is now the first place they turn for infant feeding information.

Algorithms, influencer marketing and AI-driven targeting increasingly shape parental decisions, often in ways that are difficult to trace, regulate or challenge. Influencers blur the line between peer support and paid promotion. Parenting apps, closed online groups and ‘supportive’ content create grey zones where misinformation and Code violations are harder to detect, easier to deny, and faster to scale.

Day 1 examines how Southeast Asia can respond to this rapidly evolving digital environment. What does effective Code protection look like in an AI-mediated world, and who needs to act differently?

Through case studies, tools and practical strategies, sessions explore how digital spaces can be better governed and monitored, how communities can strengthen digital literacy, and how families can be supported to navigate online information with confidence.

Nia Omar

9:00 am - 6:00 pm Al Meroz Hotel Bangkok

From rhetoric to readiness

Climate change is already reshaping infant feeding realities across Southeast Asia. Heatwaves, floods, typhoons and displacement are exposing a persistent gap between what policy acknowledges and what systems are prepared to deliver.

Breastfeeding is the only infant feeding method that remains safe when water systems fail, supply chains collapse, and displacement occurs. Yet while breastfeeding is widely referenced in emergency guidance, it is still inconsistently embedded in disaster preparedness, response financing, and frontline practice. Too often, infant and young child feeding remains peripheral: activated late, under-resourced, or overridden by inappropriate emergency responses.

Climate adaptation strategies that overlook breastfeeding miss one of the region’s most resilient, zero-carbon nutrition systems.

Drawing on regional case studies and cross-sector expertise, Day 2 focuses on implementation: governance, financing, accountability and coordination. The emphasis is on what works, what doesn’t, which models are scalable, and what must change if breastfeeding is to be treated as essential climate and health infrastructure, not an optional add-on.

Dr Karleen Gribble

9:00 am - 6:00 pm Al Meroz Hotel Bangkok

When protection exists on paper but not in practice

Across Southeast Asia, breastfeeding protection is often strong on paper but weak in lived experience.

Maternity protection laws exist but are unevenly enforced. The informal economy, where most women in the region work, remains largely outside formal protection frameworks. Return-to-work policies force impossible choices between income and infant feeding. Health systems continue to struggle with conflicts of interest that undermine trust, standards of care and professional autonomy. Community support is expected to compensate for systemic shortfalls it was never designed to address.

The challenge is in understanding why systems continue to reproduce the barriers despite decades of policy commitments.

Day 3 brings a systems lens to practical reform: addressing commercial influence in clinical settings, bridging the formal-informal divide, and emerging models that move beyond compliance towards meaningful protection.

Dr Julie P Smith

Date : November 26, 2026 - November 28, 2026
Time : 9:00 am - 6:00 am (Asia/Bangkok)
Venue : Al Meroz Hotel Bangkok