Poor Nutrition increases the danger of illness and is responsible, directly or indirectly. Adopting optimal feeding practices is prime to a child’s survival, growth, and development, but too few children benefit. Proper feeding of infants and young children can increase their chances of survival. It also can promote optimal growth and development, especially within the critical window from birth to 2 years aged.

Ideally, infants should be breastfed within one hour of birth, breastfed exclusively for the primary 6 months of life, and still be breastfed up to 2 years aged and beyond. Starting at 6 months, breastfeeding should be combined with safe, age-appropriate feeding of solid, semi-solid and soft foods.

An infant that’s not exclusively breastfed might be at a substantially greater risk of death from diarrhea or pneumonia than one who is. Moreover, breastfeeding supports infants’ immune systems and should protect them later in life from chronic conditions like obesity and diabetes. additionally, breastfeeding protects mothers against certain sorts of cancer and other health conditions.

Adequate feeding from 6 months onwards can prevent undernutrition and reduce the danger of infectious diseases, like diarrhea and pneumonia. Yet despite all the potential benefits, only about two-fifths of infants 0-5 months aged worldwide are exclusively breastfed, and slightly quite two-thirds are introduced to solid foods in a timely manner.

Levels of Recommended Feeding Practices:

Analysis of knowledge on feeding practices among infants and young children highlights the necessity for accelerated programming in this area.

Globally, one in two newborns are put to the breast within the primary hour of birth, and only over two in five infants but 6 months aged are exclusively breastfed. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that breastfeeding continues until age 2 and beyond, yet two in three young children aged 12–23 months are benefitting from it.

Global estimates for feeding youngsters aged 6 months to 2 years indicate substantial room for improvement. a touch quite two-thirds of six– to eight-month-old are receiving any solid food in the least, and when considering measures of diet quantity and quality, the rates are much lower: just one in two receive a minimum meal frequency and fewer than one in three a minimum diet diversity.

Levels of recommended feeding practices vary widely among regions. While quite two in three newborns in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are put to the breast within one hour of birth, just one in three newborns within the Middle East and North Africa receive benefits of early initiation of breastfeeding. Similarly, within the case of continued breastfeeding, quite three in four children 12-23 months aged in South Asia are still breastfed compared to but one in two children in Latin America & the Caribbean. This observed pattern is, however, reversed within the case of indicators assessing diets of infants and young children like minimum dietary diversity. Compared to 3 in five children 6–23 months aged in Latin America & the Caribbean, one in five children in South Asia receive foods from the minimum number of food groups.

Part One: Specialize in Breastfeeding

Part Two: Specialize in Complementary Feeding Practices

As infants grow, their nutrient needs grow with them. After the primary 6 months of life, an infant’s nutrient demands start to exceed what breast milk alone can provide. to stay up with these growing demands, WHO recommends that infants begin eating solid, semi-solid or soft foods at 6 months aged to make sure that their nutrient intake is sufficient to fuel their developing brains and bodies and thus indicators associated with consumption of solid, semi-solid and soft foods become increasingly important to trace.

While it’s recommended that infants start eating solid foods at 6 months, globally, about one-third of infants 6–8 months old aren’t yet eating solid foods, posing a threat to their growth and development. things are most troubling in South Asia, where about two in five infants are being introduced to solid foods too late.

While infants and youngsters are the youngest members of their families – proportionally, their nutrient needs are the best. In fact, the nutritional needs for growth and development in children 6–23 months aged are greater per kilogram of weight than at any other time in life.

Frequent feeding of a spread of foods is therefore important to assist ensure nutrient needs are met. within the graphic below, we summarize data about minimum meal frequency, minimum diet diversity, and minimum acceptable diet among children 6–23 months aged (see notes on the info section for further details on these indicators) among a subset of 71 low- and middle-income countries with comparable data for every one of the three indicators. Slightly over one-half of all children aged 6–23 months are being fed even a minimum meal frequency and fewer than one-third are fed a minimally diverse diet comprising a minimum of five out of eight food groups within the previous day.

Together, when considering both minimum meal frequency and minimum diet diversity, one in five children are receiving a “minimally acceptable diet”. When considering which segments of society are affected most, the disparity between the richest and the poorest is stark, especially for minimum diet diversity. In any case, even the richest aren’t doing alright when it involves diet diversity indicating efforts are needed to enhance the diets of infants and young children among all segments of society.