Global initiatives to improve complementary feeding.

The importance of nutrition as a foundation for healthy development is often underestimated. Poor nutrition leads to ill-health and ill-health contributes to further deterioration in nutritional status. These effects are most dramatically observed in infants and young children who bear the brunt of the onset of malnutrition and suffer the highest risk of disability and death associated with it. In 2001 54% of all childhood mortality was attributable directly or indirectly to malnutrition. A recent series of articles on child survival published in The Lancet highlighted the importance of addressing childhood malnutrition as a prerequisite for achieving internationally agreed goals to reduce malnutrition and child mortality. It is estimated that among children living in the 42 countries with 90% of global child deaths a package of effective nutrition interventions including promotion of exclusive and continued breastfeeding complementary feeding vitamin A and zinc supplementation could save 25% of childhood deaths each year. The children who die represent only a small part of the total health burden due to nutritional deficiencies. Maternal malnutrition and inappropriate breastfeeding and complementary feeding represent major risks to the health and development of those children who survive. (excerpt)