Mainstreaming nutrition into maternal and child health programmes: scaling up of exclusive breastfeeding

Interventions to promote exclusive breastfeeding have been estimated to have the potential to prevent 13% of all under-5 deaths in developing countries and are the single most important preventive intervention against child mortality. According to World Health Organization and United Nations Children Funds (UNICEF), only 39% infants are exclusively breastfed for less than 4 months. This review examines programme efforts to scale up exclusive breastfeeding in different countries and draws lesson for successful scale-up. Opportunities and challenges in scaling up of exclusive breastfeeding into Maternal and Child Health programmes are identified. The key processes required for exclusive breastfeeding scale-up are: (1) an evidence-based policy and science-driven technical guidelines; and (2) an implementation strategy and plan for achieving high exclusive breastfeeding…