Infant And Young Child Feeding Counselling

Breastfeeding and appropriate, safe and timely complementary feeding are fundamental to the health and development of children, and important for the health of their mothers. All health workers who care for women and children during the postnatal period and beyond have a key role to play in establishing and sustaining breastfeeding and appropriate complementary feeding. This guide, which is an update of the version published in 2005, enables course directors to create a customized training package that will respond directly to the specific learning needs of their health workers. The training modules cover a range of topics, including breastfeeding, complementary feeding, growth assessment and monitoring, HIV and infant feeding, and infant and young child feeding counselling.

The Model Chapter on Infant and Young Child Feeding is intended for use in basic training of health professionals. It describes essential knowledge and basic skills that every health professional who works with mothers and young children should master. The Model Chapter can be used by teachers and students as a complement to textbooks or as a concise reference manual.

This exciting book, edited by Fiona Dykes and Victoria Hall Moran and with a foreword from Gretel Pelto, explores in an integrated context the varied factors associated with infant and child nutrition, including global feeding strategies, cultural factors, issues influencing breastfeeding, and economic and life cycle influences

WHO and UNICEF jointly developed this global strategy to focus world attention on the impact that feeding practices have on the nutritional status, growth and development, health, and thus the very survival of infants and young children. The strategy is the result of a comprehensive two-year participatory process. It is based on the evidence of nutrition's significance in the early months and years of life, and of the crucial role that appropriate feeding practices play in achieving optimal health outcomes. The strategy is intended as a guide for action; it identifies interventions with a proven positive impact; it emphasizes providing mothers and families the support they need to carry out their crucial roles, and it explicitly defines the obligations and responsibilities in this regards of governments, international organizations, and other concerned parties.

This publication is a training resource that deals with the period prior to successful weaning when a child continues to receive breast milk but also needs increasing amounts of addtional complementary foods to ensure healthy development. It is intended as a practical learning tool for all those responsible for the health and nutrition of young children, particularly health and nutrition workers, and their trainers.

Responsive feeding is part of nurturing care and an essential aspect of adequate childhood nutrition and responsive caregiving. This brief is organized around five key messages and is intended for an audience involved in the design, management, and implementation of maternal and child health and nutrition programmes and services.