HOW TO OPTIMIZE INFANT FEEDING PRACTICES

Abstract

Introduction. Obesity is one of the most important non-communicable epidemics of the 21st century. Rapid weight gain during first year of life is considered as a risk factor for childhood and adolescence obesity. Pediatricians play a central role in shaping healthy diets and combating the childhood obesity epidemic. It is necessary to optimize the teaching of child nutrition in the undergraduate and postgraduate studies, first and foremost, this concerns breastfeeding.Purpose of the study: optimization of infant feeding practices by updating the content of continuing medical education for physicians to improve their parental counseling skills.Materials and methods of research. A voluntary, anonymous survey of 40 primary care physicians on their infant feeding recommendations was conducted by random sampling. With the help of Google Forms, doctors were asked to answer 20 online survey questions. The prevalence of self-reported physician recommendations has been compared with current Guidelines for Infants and Young Toddler (2017) and parental self-reported responses, which reflects existing infant feeding practices.Results of the study and their discussion. It has been found that physicians spend an average of 15-20 minutes on counseling about breastfeeding, complementary foods or assessment and correction of feeding in the second part of the first year of life. Only 27.5% of doctors did not have difficulties in counseling parents. According to doctors, enhancement of counseling algorithms (42.5%) and printed material for parents (55%) could help to improve parental counseling practices. The main recommendations of doctors on breastfeeding, the timing of complementary feeding and the general list of supplementary foods are modern and have a significant impact on the practice of breastfeeding. In doing so, evidence-based recommendations provided by Feeding Guidelines for Infants and Young Toddler (2017) regarding iron-rich foods, potential high-allergenic foods, non-recommended foods, and responsive feeding have proven to be new to some physicians.Conclusion. In order to optimize the practice of breastfeeding, it is necessary to improve the training of pediatricians and family doctors during undergraduate studies and continuing postgraduate education. In the undergraduate program, greater emphasis should be placed on developing such competencies as effective communication of physicians with parents, and the elements of breastfeeding counseling and responsive breastfeeding may be included in the list of objective structured clinical exam skills. Continuing postgraduate physician education provides for continuous updating of knowledge as updated evidence-based recommendations emerge. The Feeding Guidelines for Infants and Young Toddler (2017) can now be offered as a prototype for national infant and toddler feeding guidelines, and the information contained therein is being disseminated.