Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices and Poshan Abhiyaan: A Case Study from India

Abstract

Provision of appropriate and adequate nutrition from birth to two years determines the survival of the child, the ability to grow and learn. Any nutritional deficits during this time may have long-term implications for the child, family, and community. WHO recommends initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth, exclusive breastfeeding upto six months and introduction of complementary foods at six months with continued breastfeeding till two years or beyond. In India, breastfeeding rates have slowly and steadily improved in the past few decades, but a further boost is required. Complementary feeding, on the other hand, has disappointingly declined over the last ten years resulting in merely 9.6% of 6–23 months infants receiving an adequate diet. The minimum acceptable diet rates at just 6.4% are very poor. Mothers face several barriers and challenges at the family, community, workplace and health facility level which prevent them to adopt recommended IYCF practices. Improving adequate and appropriate complementary feeding should be considered as a major priority and commitment. Thus, Poshan Abhiyaan launched as a people’s movement with cross-sectoral convergence to target the multidimensional nature of malnutrition and real-time monitoring through Integrated Child Development Services-Common Application Software (ICDS-CAS) aims to improve the status of Infant and Young Child Feeding and reduce malnutrition among children in India.