[afro-nets] World Breastfeeding Week 2006: Promoting proper feeding for infants and young children

["Brian Pazvakavambwa" <PazvakavambwaB@zw.afro.who.int>]

World Breastfeeding Week: Promoting proper feeding for infants and young children
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Source:
http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/infantfeeding/en/index.html

The challenge

Nutrition and nurturing during the first three years are both crucial for lifelong health and well-being. In infancy, no gift is more precious than breastfeeding; yet barely one in three infants is exclusively breastfed during the first four months of life.

Faulty feeding practices begin with giving any other nourishment but breast milk before complementary feeding is nutritionally required ? or with substituting entirely for breast milk, which places babies at risk of illness, even death. When complementary feeding begins, uninformed decisions can also interfere with good nutrition in terms of which foods are given, how much and how often and whether breastfeeding continues, as it should. Nutritionally inadequate or contaminated food and starting complementary feeding too early or too late are major causes of malnutrition in infants and young children.

The response

Promoting sound feeding practices is one of the main programme areas that the Department of Nutrition for Health and Development focuses on. The Department strives to make significant investments in the protection, promotion and support of sound feeding recommendations. This includes the production of sound, evidence-based technical information, development of guidelines and counseling courses, production of appropriate indicators and maintenance of a Global Data Bank on Breastfeeding and Complementary Feeding. 

Work is focusing on the following areas
- Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding 
http://www.who.int/entity/nutrition/topics/global_strategy/en/index.html
- Exclusive breastfeeding 
http://www.who.int/entity/nutrition/topics/exclusive_breastfeeding/en/index.html
- Complementary feeding 
http://www.who.int/entity/nutrition/topics/complementary_feeding/en/index.html
- Feeding in Exceptionally Difficult Circumstances 
http://www.who.int/entity/nutrition/topics/feeding_difficulty/en/index.html
- International Code of Breast-milk Substitutes 
http://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/code_english.pdf
- Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative

More information

:: The World Health Organization's infant feeding recommendation 
http://www.who.int/entity/nutrition/topics/infantfeeding_recommendation/en/index.html
:: The WHO Global Data Bank on Breastfeeding and Complementary Feeding 
http://www.who.int/entity/nutrition/databases/infantfeeding/en/index.html
:: List of publications 
http://www.who.int/entity/nutrition/publications/infantfeeding/en/index.html

World Health Assembly resolution in Infant and young child nutrition (WHA55.25)(English)
http://www.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA55/ewha5525.pdf

--
Brian Pazvakavambwa
pazvakavambwab@zw.afro.who.int