Complementary feeding, defined as the process of providing foods in addition to milk when breast milk or milk formula alone are no longer adequate to meet nutritional requirements, generally starts at age 6 months and continues until 23 months of age. This is a developmental period when it is critical for children to learn to accept healthy foods and beverages and establish long-term dietary patterns. It also coincides with the peak period for risk of growth faltering and nutrient deficiencies. This guideline provides global, normative evidence-based recommendations on complementary feeding of infants and young children 6–23 months of age living in low, middle- and high-income countries. It considers the needs of both breastfed and non-breastfed children. The guideline supersedes the earlier Guiding Principles for Complementary Feeding of the Breastfed Child and Guiding principles for feeding non-breastfed children 6-24 months of age. The recommendations in the guideline are intended for a wide audience, including policy-makers, and technical and programme staff at government institutions and organizations involved in the design, implementation and scaling of programmes for infant and young child feeding. The guideline may also be used by caregivers, health-care professionals, clinicians, academic and research institutions, and training institutions.

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.

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.

Recommendations for feeding infants and young children have changed substantially over time owing to scientific advances, cultural influences, societal trends, and other factors. At the same time, stronger approaches to reviewing and synthesizing scientific evidence have evolved, such that there are now established protocols for developing evidence-based health recommendations. However, not all authoritative bodies have used such approaches for developing infant feeding guidance, and for many feeding questions there is little or no sound evidence available to guide best practices, despite the fact that research on infant and young child feeding has expanded in recent decades. Summarizing the current landscape of feeding recommendations for infants and young children can reveal the level of consistency of existing guidance, shed light on the types of evidence that underpin each recommendation, and provide insight into the feasibility of harmonizing guidelines. Feeding Infants and Children from Birth to 24 Months collects, compares, and summarizes existing recommendations on what and how to feed infants and young children from birth to 24 months of age. This report makes recommendations to stakeholders on strategies for communicating and disseminating feeding recommendations.

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 report offers a rationale for urgently scaling up effective interventions to reduce the global burden of child and maternal undernutrition. It provides information on nutrition strategies and progress made by programmes, based on the most recent data available. The success stories and lessons leaned that are described in the publication demonstrate that reducing undernutrition is entirely feasible. The report presents detailed, up-to-date information on nutritional status, programme implementation and related indicators for the 24 countries where 80 per cent of the world’s stunted children live. While this report is a call to action for these 24 high-burden countries, it also highlights the need for accelerated efforts to reduce undernutrition in all countries.

This review is intended primarily for health professionals and others concerned with nutrition, health and well-being of children. The objective is to provide the background information that is necessary for the development of scientifically sound feeding recommendations and appropriate intervention programmes to enhance children's dietary intake and nutritional status. Although much of the information may be relevent for young children in industrialized countries, the review focuses on the particular needs of children in low-income sttings, and the recommendations hve been formulated with consideration for the economic and environmental constraints that are common in developing countries. [Author] The review is organized in nine sections : 1. Introduction. - 2. Breast-feeding and complementary feeding : a continuum. - 3. Energy required from complementary foods and factors affecting their intake. - 4. Protein and micronutrients required from complementary foods. - 5. Caregiver feeding behaviours. - 6. Food processing safety and quality. - 7. Global data on child-feeding practices. - 8. Programmatic interventions to improve complementary feeding. - 9. Conclusions