COMPLEMENTARY FEEDING INDICATORS FOR CHILDREN AGED 6 TO 23 MONTHS ACCORDING TO BREASTFEEDING STATUS.

Daniella Garcia Vidal Rodrigues Leonez,Angélica Rocha De Freitas Melhem,Paula Chuproski Saldan,Débora Falleiros De Mello,Daniele Gonçalves Vieira

doi:10.1590/1984-0462/2021/39/2019408

Daniella Garcia Vidal Rodrigues Leonez, Angélica Rocha De Freitas Melhem + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/1984-0462/2021/39/2019408

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Abstract

ABSTRACTObjective: To verify if there are differences among the complementary feeding indicators of children aged 6-23 months according to the breastfeeding status.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out with 1,355 children aged 6-23 months in 2012 to evaluate five indicators proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and modified in accordance with Brazilian’s recommendations “Ten steps to a healthy feeding: a feeding guide for children under two years old”. The indicators used were: I. Introduction of solid, semi-solid or soft foods; II. Minimum dietary diversity; III. Minimum meal frequency; IV. Minimum acceptable diet, and V. Consumption of iron-rich foods. To verify differences between the complementary feeding indicators according to breastfeeding status, the F-statistic was used, with p≤0.05 meaning significant.Results: Indicators I, II, and V were similar among breastfed and non-breastfed children; however, indicators III and IV presented a higher proportion of adequacy for non-breastfed children, with 94.9% (CI95% 93.2-96.2) versus 40.3% (CI95% 33.2-47.9) for indicator III, and 57.3% (CI95% 53.2-61.2) versus 23.1% (CI95% 17.4-30.1) for indicator IV.Conclusions: Non-breastfed children have better complementary feeding status, but the indicator III takes into account non-breast milk as a meal for non-breastfed children, which increased the number of dairy meals and influenced indicator IV (calculated from indicators II and III).

Highlights

Feeding is essential in the first years of life to the formation of eating habits, with short and long-term implications for the child’s health.[1]
The Brazilian Ministry of Health (MH) prepared a document to evaluate complementary feeding (CF), which follows the guidelines by the World Health Organization (WHO) and contains five indicators, adapted to the Brazilian reality, modified based on the “Ten steps to a healthy feeding: a feeding guide for children under two years old”
*Data expressed in % (95% confidence interval). This study made it possible to evaluate CF indicators according to the breastfeeding status of children from 6 to 23 months old

Summary

Introduction

Feeding is essential in the first years of life to the formation of eating habits, with short and long-term implications for the child’s health.[1]. The feeding of the nursing mother influences the child’s habits, because flavors and aromas of food are passed on to the infant via breast milk (BM). Exposure to a diversity of foods in the complementary feeding (CF) phase can influence the dietary preferences of the subsequent phases.[2,3] A longitudinal study, which evaluated the variety of fruits and vegetables consumed by school-aged children, found that the varied consumption of vegetables was influenced by maternal preferences; the variety of fruits was influenced by the longer duration of breastfeeding (BF) and the variety or exposure of the fruit consumed in the first two years of life.[4].

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Conclusion