World Breastfeeding Week (WBW), held in the first week of August every year, is a global campaign supported by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF and many Ministries of Health and civil society partners on the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding. This initiative was started in 1992 to encourage mothers to breastfeed their children and build a support community for new mothers who face any difficulties in breastfeeding.

Why Did We Need An Awareness Week?

Gynaecologist, obstetrician and founder of Baby Soon Fertility and IVF Center, Dr Jyoti Bali with 26 years of experience says, “A reason why some mothers stopped breastfeeding was because of the increased marketing of formula as a convenient solution compared to breastfeeding.”

Experts agree that women undergo physical changes in their bodies during their pregnancy and while breastfeeding too, however, these have been exaggerated. “Breastfeeding can lead to temporary changes in breast size and shape, but these changes are typically normal and revert to baseline after weaning. Perceptions about breastfeeding causing long-term body changes are often unscientific or exaggerated,” says Dr Rao.

These were some of the reasons why women stopped breastfeeding and thus an initiative like World Breastfeeding Week was started. This also aims to highlight the health benefits to the mother and the child on breastfeeding.

Benefits of Breastfeeding on Mother

Rao says that for the mother, it helps in faster postpartum recovery, reduces the risk of certain cancers, and can help with postpartum weight loss.

“Breast Feeding helps the mothers to shed their pregnancy weight more quickly because the production of milk requires the burning of calories,” agrees Dr Bali.

Other health benefits to mothers are postpartum healing, bonding with the baby and a decrease in the risk of ovarian cancer, mentions Dr Bali.

Breastfeeding Benefits on Baby

There are also nutritional values that help a preterm baby in his or her development. “For example, breast milk's higher protein content makes it easier for premature babies to absorb and digest than formula, which encourages better weight gain. Premature babies often have specific nutritional needs due to their early birth. Breast milk provides a tailored balance of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates that support their rapid growth and development. The composition of breast milk adjusts to meet the changing needs of a preterm infant, including higher levels of certain nutrients,” says Dr Goel.

Dr Bali also points out that breast milk contains antibodies, probiotics and DHA and ARA, a kind of fatty acids that are required for brain development. Thus, a baby can benefit a great deal from breastfeeding.

Health Risks When Not Breastfeeding

Poor breastfeeding practices in infancy and early childhood, resulting in malnutrition, contribute to impaired cognitive and social development, poor school performance and reduced productivity in later life.

Sarwa points out that psychological factors like stress, anxiety, postpartum depression, poor latch due to anatomical issues or improper positioning, and other medical conditions are the common reasons for this. “Identification and management of the specific cause, appropriate counselling by a healthcare provider, support (emotional and workplace both) and alternative feeding options,” he says.

Unable To Breastfeed Your Child? Here is What You Can Do

Do not be worried about its safety, Dr Rao says that donated milk is screened, pasteurised, and distributed to ensure safety and nutrition.

Are You a Working Mother?

“Purchasing a superior electric breast pump can increase the effectiveness of the procedure. Maintaining a consistent pumping schedule—ideally, every three to four hours—helps keep the milk supply steady. Pumped milk can be refrigerated for up to four days if stored in sterile containers or bags that have been labelled with the date and time. Milk can be frozen and thawed for extended storage,” suggests Dr Goel.

As India's birth rate slips below replacement level, fertility specialists say nearly half of all conception struggles trace back to the male partner. Yet most men still wait years before getting tested.

Walk into almost any Indian fertility clinic fifteen years ago, and the pattern was the same. The couple sat down, and within minutes, the questions, the tests, and the unspoken blame had settled on the woman. The man was usually an afterthought. What has changed is the arithmetic, not attitudes. Somewhere between 40 and 50 per cent of infertility cases in India trace to a male factor, and once you add the couples where both partners contribute, a man is involved in roughly seven of every ten.

The timing has a lot to do with where the birth rate is heading. India has fallen to about 2.1 children per woman, the level at which a population just replaces itself, and several states sit below it. Between 15 and 20 per cent of couples face infertility, more of them in the cities. Against that backdrop, the thing nobody wanted to discuss, men's fertility, has finally pushed into the 2026 conversation.

The Global Decline in Sperm Counts

The figures that forced the issue are not really Indian. They are global. A large 2022 review in Human Reproduction Update pooled decades of data and found average sperm concentration had roughly halved between 1973 and 2018, a 52 per cent drop, with the curve steeper after 2000.

For years, this was filed away as a rich-world problem. It is not. The same pattern shows up across Asia, South America, and Africa, and Indian clinicians report counts falling steeply over the last thirty years.

Why Men Delay Fertility Testing

Ask why, and the list is depressingly ordinary. We sit too much, carry more weight than we used to, and live with stress, cigarettes, alcohol, and a daily soup of pollutants and hormone-disrupting chemicals. The trouble is that none of it shows on the surface. A man can feel perfectly fit and still have a problem, and one belief does real damage: that if sex works, fertility must be fine too. Sperm quality can decline long before any symptoms become apparent, and a semen analysis remains one of the simplest and most informative tests in the fertility workup. Yet couples treat it as a last resort instead of a first move.

And the waiting costs them. Clinical reviews suggest Indian men get checked three to five years after their partners do, held back by embarrassment and everything masculinity is supposed to mean. Those years are not harmless. Problems that could have been fixed quietly get worse, age creeps in, and the emotional weight keeps building.

Some of what turns up is genuinely tricky. Take azoospermia, where no sperm show up in the semen at all. It affects around one in a hundred men generally, and up to ten to fifteen per cent of infertile men. One Indian study put the share with an obstructive form, caused by a blockage, at about 21 per cent, and a blockage is often something a surgeon can fix. Even so, a difficult diagnosis is not necessarily a dead end when identified early. Microsurgical sperm retrieval and advanced sperm selection techniques have enabled fatherhood for many men who were once told they had little chance of conceiving biologically. In many cases, the greatest obstacle is not the science but the silence and stigma surrounding male fertility.

How IVF and ICSI Are Changing Outcomes

When the male factor is severe, IVF has redrawn what counts as possible. The world ran around 200,000 cycles in 2000 and now runs well over three million a year, with India one of the fastest-growing markets anywhere, heading toward 400,000 cycles by 2030, and much of that demand coming from smaller towns.

The real game-changer is ICSI, where a single good sperm is placed straight into the egg. For a man with azoospermia, even a few sperm retrieved surgically can be enough. However, the benefits of these advances are significantly reduced when diagnosis is delayed for years.

New Tools Are Improving Male Fertility Diagnosis

The tools for finding the problem have sharpened, too. Beyond the basic count, clinics now run tests like the DNA Fragmentation Index, which checks the genetic integrity of the sperm and can explain failures that otherwise make no sense. Genetic screening picks up causes that used to slip by, and AI is making semen analysis more consistent and helping grade embryos in the lab.

Underneath the technology sits a slower shift doctors say matters most. Instead of testing the woman first and getting to the man later, both partners are increasingly looked at together from day one. That spares women invasive tests they never needed and catches male problems before years are wasted. Fertility is a shared responsibility, and so is the process of identifying the underlying cause when conception does not occur. Assess both people at once, kindly and without blame, and the answers come faster.

Why Early Testing Matters

So, the message reaching Indian men now is simple, and it is losing its edge of shame. Your reproductive health is just your health. A test taken early, with no embarrassment attached, may be the most important thing a couple ever does on the way to having a child.

PS: This article is intended for general awareness and educational purposes and does not constitute medical advice. Individuals experiencing fertility concerns should consult a qualified specialist for personalized evaluation and guidance.

At a time when artificial intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly significant role in healthcare, fertility clinics are turning to AI to help analyze sperm. Surprised? It's already happening. Advanced AI-powered systems are helping assess sperm with greater accuracy and consistency, offering men seeking fatherhood a more reliable path through fertility evaluation and treatment, according to experts, today on Father's Day.

Infertility affects millions of people worldwide, with an estimated one in six individuals of reproductive age experiencing difficulty conceiving at some point in their lives. Male infertility contributes to up to half of all infertility cases, and around 1 per cent of men are diagnosed with azoospermia — a condition in which no sperm are detected in a semen sample.

However, some men may have extremely low sperm counts, with only a handful of sperm cells present and difficult to detect through conventional methods. Emerging AI-powered technologies are now helping specialists identify these rare sperm cells more accurately, offering new hope to men facing severe infertility and improving their chances of biological parenthood.

HealthandMe spoke to experts, who believe that AI is increasingly being used in fertility care to improve the precision, consistency and efficiency of sperm analysis.

AI Changing Traditional Sperm Analysis

Read More: 3 Infants Hospitalized In US Botulism Outbreak Tied To Powdered Formula

Traditionally, semen evaluation has relied on manual microscopy, where embryologists assess sperm count, motility, morphology and movement patterns under a microscope. Experts said this process can be influenced by observer skill and interpretation, leading to variations in results.

Dr. Neha Gupta, Additional Director, Obstetrics & Gynecology at Fortis Noida, told HealthandMe that "AI systems use image recognition and machine learning to assess sperm count, motility, morphology and movement patterns in real time, often providing more reliable results".

"Research shows that AI-assisted sperm analysis can lower human error, reduce differences between observers, and process large amounts of data much faster than traditional methods," she said.

According to Dr. Gupta, these advances help doctors make better decisions and improve the overall efficiency of fertility evaluations.

AI as a Support Tool, Not a Replacement

Also read: AI Cannot Replace Doctors, It Can Only Complement, Says Dr Santosh Sivaranjani

Dr. Gupta added that for patients, AI can mean faster reports, more dependable assessments and a smoother diagnostic process. AI also aids in embryo selection, treatment planning and predicting IVF outcomes, helping customize fertility care.

Dr. PGL Lalit Kumar, Head of Embryology and Scientific Director at Nova IVF Fertility, told HealthandMe that sperm analysis has long depended on the expertise of embryologists who evaluate sperm characteristics manually.

"AI is gradually shifting sperm assessment from a largely observational process to a more data-enriched one, which can help specialists identify subtle patterns and variations that may have previously been difficult to quantify," he said.

One of the major advantages of AI, according to Dr. Kumar, is its ability to analyze large numbers of sperm cells within a short period and detect subtle patterns that may not always be obvious during manual assessment.

However, he stressed that AI is not replacing specialists. Instead, it serves as an additional tool that supports embryologists' observations and helps them make more informed decisions.

He added that AI can bring greater consistency to assessments by reducing subjectivity and ensuring sperm evaluation is based on objective, measurable parameters.

Making Fertility Treatment More Consistent

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"For couples going through fertility treatment, a lot of these changes happen behind the scenes, but they can make the whole process feel smoother," Dr. Kumar said, noting that faster analysis, more consistent reporting and smarter sperm selection can help doctors adapt treatment plans more effectively.

He said that technology has helped bring greater consistency to laboratory processes, particularly in sperm and embryo evaluation.

The expert emphasized that fertility treatment is not driven by technology alone and that the experience of embryologists and clinicians remains central to every decision, with AI acting as a support system rather than a replacement for human expertise.

AI Adoption Growing in India

Dr. Kshitiz Murdia, CEO and Whole-Time Director of Indira IVF Hospital, told HealthandMe that AI is making sperm assessment more objective, consistent and data-driven.

From traditional semen analysis, where interpretation could vary between observers on manual microscopic examination, he said that "AI-powered systems can rapidly analyze thousands of sperm cells and assess parameters such as count, motility and morphology with a high degree of precision, helping reduce human variability".

According to Dr. Murdia, adoption of AI-enabled technologies in reproductive medicine is gradually increasing in India, particularly in advanced fertility laboratories.

However, Dr. Murdia stressed that AI should be viewed as an aid rather than a substitute for clinical expertise. Human judgement, patient history and comprehensive fertility evaluation remain central to treatment planning.

As oncologists, we often meet patients at some of the most difficult moments of their lives. Yet there are times where a patient's journey reminds of the extraordinary resilience that people can show while facing the challenges that cancer presents

I recently treated a 38-year-old woman whose story has stayed with me.

Having just welcomed her baby into the world, her demanding yet joyful routine revolved around feeding schedules and sleepless nights. It was during this period that she noticed a hard lump in her breast.

Breast Lumps Can Cause Aggressive Breast Cancer

A sonomammography revealed a suspicious BIRADS 4A lesion. A biopsy confirmed Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC), which is one of the more aggressive forms of breast cancer. It was classified as a Stage III disease after evaluation through PET-CT which showed involvement of the axillary lymph nodes. The tumor also had a high Ki-67 index, indicating that it was growing rapidly.

Facing Cancer While Caring for A Newborn

The untimely diagnosis found the mother facing difficult questions about cancer treatment, her future and her ability to care for her child. One of the immediate challenges was that she had to stop breastfeeding.

Under the guidance of her pediatrician, her baby was transitioned to bottle feeds. This can be an emotionally challenging process for mothers as the feeling of guilt tends to seep in when breastfeeding plans are disrupted by illness.

A Modern Treatment Approach

After detailed and prolonged discussions with the patient and her family, we initiated treatment with neoadjuvant immunotherapy using pembrolizumab in combination with chemotherapy. This approach has emerged as one of the more prominent advances in the treatment of high-risk Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, having significantly improved outcomes for many patients.

Motherhood is a physically and emotionally taxing experience but the patient showed incredible strength during her cancer therapy, driven by her child and the unwavering support of her family.

Following completion of neoadjuvant therapy, repeat PET-CT imaging showed a near-complete response. She subsequently underwent surgery, and the final pathology report revealed a pathological complete response, meaning no residual invasive cancer had been detected.

This was the desired outcome for the treating team as well as the patient. She later completed the remaining course of immunotherapy, bringing her total treatment duration to one year. Today, both mother and child are doing well.

Breast Cancer Can Occur During Pregnancy

This tremendous journey highlights an important message. The fact that breast cancer can occur during pregnancy and the postpartum period deserves wider attention. Any breast lump that persists or feels unusual should be evaluated by a healthcare professional, as early diagnosis remains one of the most important factors in achieving positive outcomes.

The process is reflective of the advances in cancer treatment that are changing the outlook for patients with aggressive cancers. These advances are done through the integration of immunotherapy into treatment protocols which is helping more patients achieve improved long-term outcomes. The mother’s story is a reminder that cancer and motherhood are not mutually exclusive journeys.

Her ability to navigate this path is due to her timely diagnosis, access to appropriate treatment, family support and personal resilience. What began as a frightening diagnosis soon after childbirth ultimately became a story of hope, courage and survival. This is a powerful reminder to every new mother who might discover an unusual breast lump, that listening to your body and seeking medical advice early can make all the difference.