WHO Recommendations and Information Encountered by Czech Parents

Overview

Background.
During the last 15 years much effort with remarkable success has been devoted to the promotion and support of breast-feeding. Much less attention has been paid, until recently, to child nutrition during the period of transition from exclusively milk feeding to the family diet. The aim of presented study is to provide a qualitative review of information on feeding of children 6 – 24 months old available to parents from various sources and to compare it with the WHO recommendations based on the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding. 

Methods and Results.
Within the frame of field practice, students of the Charles University, 1st Medical Faculty conducted interviews with 273 mothers of children under 5 years old, focused interview with 19 paediatric general practitioners, gathered 42 promotion materials, identified and evaluated 16 relevant publications and 14 web sites. All practitioners interviewed provided information on the nutrition, recommend exclusive breast-feeding up to the age of 6 months and the appropriate introduction of complementary food but they probably did not promote sufficiently breast-feeding beyond six months. Review of various information sources revealed, as expected, certain variations in feeding recommendations, which is partially a consequence of their changes during the last decade. Most publications emphasise breast-feeding as the ideal nutrition for up to 6 months. Recommendations for breast-feeding beyond 6 months are inadequate. Complementary feeding recommendations are, with exceptions, common for breast-fed and non-breastfed children as well as for those who need to start complementary feeding before 6 months of age. Except for sporadic notes, publications do not deal with the safe food preparation and feeding during and after a common disease. 

Conclusions.
Consideration to all 10 areas of WHO guiding principles should be given. Also the clear formulation of breastfeeding recommendations, differentiation of information according to the target population, and recommendations based on the conditions of a thriving infant exclusively breast-fed for 6 months would contribute to the harmonization of information on the older infant and toddler nutrition with WHO recommendations. 

Key words:
complementary food, infant feeding, toddler feeding, breast-feeding.