Infant Feeding Trends over 25 years

Asymposium, “Advances in Meeting the Nutritional Needs of Infants Worldwide” organized by Dr. William Heird from the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center and sponsored by the International Formula Council was presented at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition. Dr. Heird started the symposium by summarizing the progress made over the past 25 years in promoting breastfeeding, combating malnutrition, and improving the composition of infant formula. Symposium papers were published in the February 2007 supplement of The Journal of Nutrition and are available at jn.nutrition.org/ content/vol137/issue2.

According to Dr. Heird more than 90% of women in developing countries and 50% to 90% of women in industrialized countries now start breastfeeding, a marked improvement over the past 25 years. Although the duration of breastfeeding also has increased, fewer than 35% of infants worldwide are exclusively breastfed at 4 months of age despite the recommendation that exclusive breastfeeding should continue for at least 6 months.

Parallel to the greater prevalence of breastfeeding, progress has been made in combating malnutrition. Stunting (low length/height for age) in children younger than 5 years in developing countries has decreased from 49% in 1980 to 23% in 2005.

Along with more widespread breastfeeding, there have also been other positive trends in infant feeding practices over the past 25 years, including:

• Delayed introduction of cow’s milk;
• Increased use of iron-fortified formulas which has been credited with reducing the prevalence of iron deficiency anemia in infants who receive formula; and
• Modification of formulas by the addition of taurine, carnitine, nucleotides, and long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids.

The use of whey-predominant rather than caseinpredominant formulas also has increased over the past 25 years. Although the protein in whey-predominant formulas is more similar to human milk protein, there is no clear evidence that whey-predominant formulas provide a major benefit for infants.