[Importance of infant feeding during the first year of life]

During the first year of life the diet must promote the appropriate physical growth and development, as well to form early healthy food habits. The World Health Organization recommends that infant's intake mother's milk during two first years of life, being the exclusive food in first semester. However since the sixth months of life this Organization also recommends to add at infant diet other foods different to the human milk. This new foods must have the consistency that permits to infant swallowed without chew; they must be gradually increased until incorporate at the end of the first year of life and at same time progressively increase the consistency and variation of foods. Besides assisting and nurturing their infants in each feeding session, mothers must also provide stimulus and affect. In addition, are showed the stunted, iron and folic acid deficiency anemia and overweight and obesity, as health disorders associated with the feeding mode of the infants. At the end, it is showed a check list, as a tool to advice the correct mode to feed the infant that will be used when mothers attend to the primary health unit.