Optimal infant feeding and its effects on growth: An Indian perspective

Abstract

Optimal growth is essential for every human being to be able to achieve its full structural and functional capabilities. A healthy and normal growth pattern needs an optimal nutrition from the earliest stages of life. Suboptimal nutrition adversely affects growth and development from intrauterine stages of life and causes permanent damage to the growing child's physiology. Amidst the adverse scene of various suboptimal feeding practices in the developing countries like India, mainly owing to poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, and food-related cultural myths and taboos, various guidelines have been put forward to recommend optimal feeding practices. This chapter gives a brief overview of the recommendations for optimal feeding practices, describes what a normal growth is and what can go wrong, and reviews how infant feeding practices positively and negatively affect growth, especially in the context of India and other developing countries.