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Strengthening Actions to Improve Feeding of Infants and Young Children 6 to 23 Months of Age: Summary of a Recent World Health Organization/UNICEF Technical Meeting, Geneva, 6–9 October 2008
B. Daelmans, Nuné Mangasaryan, J. Martines, R. Saadeh, C. Casanovas, M. Arabi
Infant and young child feeding interventions are critical to promote growth, development, and survival of children. It is estimated that over a third of all deaths of children under 5 years of age are directly or indirectly caused by undernutrition.…
Infant and young child feeding interventions are critical to promote growth, development, and survival of children. It is estimated that over a third of all deaths of children under 5 years of age are directly or indirectly caused by undernutrition. It is also estimated that about 1.4 million child lives could be saved through improved breastfeeding practices [1] and an additional 0.55 million child lives through improved complementary feeding practices [2]. Moreover, appropriate infant and young child feeding practices contribute to prevention of overweight and obesity in early childhood, thus mitigating the dual burden of malnutrition experienced in many countries. In the past two decades, marked improvements have been made in understanding effective interventions to improve infant and young child feeding. The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF recommend that, on a population basis, children be exclusively breastfed for 6 months, after which nutritiously adequate and safe complementary foods should be introduced along with continued breastfeeding up to 2 years and beyond [3]. The Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding, which was endorsed by WHO Member States at the World Health Assembly (WHA) and the UNICEF Executive Board in 2002, has provided the overarching framework to guide program actions, and a number of countries have translated the Global Strategy into national action plans [4]. Progress has been made in promoting effective interventions in particular to improve breastfeeding practices, and this has resulted in important increases in rates of exclusive breastfeeding in some countries [5]. The same cannot be said for complementary feeding, which marks a period of great vulnerability for the onset of malnutrition. The Guiding Principles for Complementary Feeding of the Breastfed Child [6] and the Guiding Principles for Feeding Non-Breastfed Children 6–24 Months of Age [7] have provided important new guidance on the various critical dimensions that constitute appropriate feeding in young children. However, much more is needed to translate these guiding principles into effective program actions. WHO and UNICEF convened a technical meeting “Strengthening actions to improve infant and young child feeding practices in children 6 to 23 months of age” to examine the evidence for effective interventions to improve complementary foods and feeding practices, identify the actions needed to integrate these interventions into health-service delivery, and discuss a planning framework and tools to support managers in designing locally appropriate, effective, and feasible programs.
Published in
Food and Nutrition Bulletin
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5
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5 | 2009 |
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