Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF)

Appropriate feeding practices are essential for the nutrition, growth, development and survival of infants and young children. These feeding practices, known collectively as infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices include breastfeeding and complementary feeding. Infants should be breastfed within half an hour of birth, exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life, and thereafter should receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding continues up to two years and beyond. In a gross estimate IYCF practices encompasses exactly 1000 days of nutritional practices: 270 days (9 months) for pregnant mother and 730 days (2 years) of the child's life.

Bangladesh Situation

Bangladesh has a strong culture of breastfeeding. Almost all children (98%) are breastfed at some time in their lives and over 80% of children are still breastfed at 20-23 month of age. However, many aspects of infant and young child feeding are far from optimal. The initiation of breastfeeding is often delayed, with less than half infants (43%) put to the breast within an hour of birth (BDHS, 2007). About 64% of infants aged less than six months are exclusively breastfed (BDHS, 2011) because other liquids and complementary foods are given too early. Complementary feeding can also begin too late; only about 21% infants received complementary feeding according to guideline.

To improve IYCF practices National Nutrition Services (NNS) of Health, Population, Nutrition Sector Program (HPNSP) under the ministry of health and family welfare planned to train the field level workers of the health and family planning sectors. A 3 days training program has been developed.