Complementary Feeding
Complementary foods are foods given in addition to breastmilk. Malnutrition can result from suboptimal breastfeeding practices, poor-quality complementary foods, detrimental feeding practices, and contamination of complementary food and feeding utensils. The second half of an infant's first year is an especially vulnerable time because infants are learning to eat and must be fed soft foods frequently and patiently. If nutritional intake is inadequate, the consequences persist throughout life. Introducing safe, appropriate complementary foods at six months is recommended, with increased feeding frequency and changes in food consistency, quantity, and diversity as the child ages. Emphasis is placed on the importance of breastmilk as an important source of energy, protein and micronutrients during this period, and encouraging feeding during and following illness.
USAID's Response
USAID works to improve complementary feeding in developing countries by providing culturally acceptable technical assistance to health practitioners, especially those working at the community level, on how to best educate mothers about complementary feeding. A number of USAID-supported programs in Honduras, Madagascar and other countries have achieved success at scale in improving infant and young child feeding, including complementary feeding practices, through community-based growth promotion (CB-GP) rather than the conventional facility-based growth monitoring programs that have had limited success in the past. These efforts are critically linked at the community level to improving safe water, hygiene and sanitation, because of the problems of introducing contamination fluids and foods to infants and their risk of illness and death from diarrhea.
Related Links
Infant and Young Child Feeding
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