Premium
The Weanling's dilemma: Are we making progress?
Author(s) -
ROWLAND MICHAEL G. M.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
acta pædiatrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.772
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1651-2227
pISSN - 0803-5253
DOI - 10.1111/j.1651-2227.1986.tb10348.x
Subject(s) - medicine , weanling , weaning , breast milk , breast feeding , offspring , breastfeeding , environmental health , dilemma , disease , pediatrics , consistency (knowledge bases) , pregnancy , intensive care medicine , endocrinology , biochemistry , chemistry , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , epistemology , biology , genetics
. In many developing countries the weanling child (the breastfed child who is regularly receiving additional food) still suffers a high level of morbidity and mortality from diarrhoeal disease. The initiation of weaning is a critical event. No clear strategy exists for substantially enhancing the breast milk output of demand feeding mothers in underprivileged communities. Remarkably little progress has been made in our ability to advise mothers, either on a collective or an individual basis, as to when they should supplement the diet of their breastfed offspring, one continuing problem being the failure to adopt appropriate growth standards for infants. Furthermore there has been little attempt to improve traditional weaning foods in terms of consistency, shelf life and bioavailability of nutrients. Increasing insights into the normal growth pattern of breastfed infants and knowledge of localised appropriate traditional food technology remain grossly underexploited.