Assessing the Nurturing Care Content of UNICEF's Community Infant and Young Child Feeding Counselling Package: Gaps,
Amber J Hromi-Fiedler1, Rafael Pérez-Escamilla1, Sofia Segura-Pérez2
1Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA.
Insights
Country adaptations of the UNICEF Community Infant and Young Child Feeding Counselling Package (C-IYCF CP) offer valuable insights. Best practices can enhance the C-IYCF CP with essential nurturing care elements, improving infant and young child feeding support globally.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Nutrition Science
- Child Development
Background:
- The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Community Infant and Young Child Feeding Counselling Package (C-IYCF CP) is a widely used global resource for infant and young child feeding (IYCF) counseling.
- The current C-IYCF CP has not been updated in 8 years, presenting an opportunity to enhance its nurturing care content by examining existing resources and country-level adaptations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify and map nurturing care content within the UNICEF C-IYCF CP.
- To pinpoint gaps in nurturing care or feeding elements within the C-IYCF CP.
- To document country-level adaptations and identify best practices for strengthening the C-IYCF CP.
Main Methods:
- An iterative assessment process involving codebook development to map nurturing care elements within the C-IYCF CP.
- Analysis of IYCF packages from 11 countries to identify gaps and refine the codebook.
- Key informant interviews from 5 countries with comprehensive nurturing care content or routine home visits.
Main Results:
- The C-IYCF CP demonstrated limited nurturing care content, particularly in safety/security and early learning domains.
- All interviewed countries had adapted their IYCF packages to include priority nurturing care content, though the depth varied.
- Two countries were integrating information technology for training and delivery of the C-IYCF CP.
Conclusions:
- Country-level best practices can effectively address the identified gaps in nurturing care within the UNICEF C-IYCF CP.
- Sharing these adapted practices enables countries to make informed decisions on prioritizing nurturing care content.
- Recommendations for strengthening the C-IYCF CP can be guided by documented country-level innovations and lessons learned.
Background:
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Community Infant and Young Child Feeding Counselling Package (C-IYCF CP) is used globally for infant and young child feeding (IYCF) counseling. With the C-IYCF CP last updated 8 y ago, mapping existing nurturing care content, identifying gaps, and documenting current country-level changes offers a unique opportunity to guide recommendations to strengthen the nurturing care content of this package.
Objectives:
The primary study aims were to: 1) identify and map existing nurturing care content within UNICEF's C-IYCF CP, 2) identify gaps related to nurturing care or feeding elements within the C-IYCF CP, 3) identify country-level nurturing care adaptations to the C-IYCF CP, and 4) identify best practices and lessons learned from country adaptations that can be recommended for inclusion in the C-IYCF CP.
Methods:
The assessment included 4 phases: 1) conduct an iterative process to identify and map nurturing care elements within the C-IYCF CP using a codebook explicitly developed for this assessment; 2) identify gaps in the C-IYCF CP; 3) apply the codebook to IYCF packages from 11 countries, revise, then finalize the codebook; and 4) identify and interview key informants from 4 countries whose IYCF packages had the most comprehensive nurturing care content plus 1 country where health care professionals make routine mother-child home visits.
Results:
The C-IYCF CP contained limited nurturing care content, especially around safety/security and early learning. All 5 countries interviewed had systematically identified and included priority nurturing care content in each package, yet content level varied. Two countries were also incorporating information technology into the training and delivery of the C-IYCF CP.
Conclusions:
Existing country-level best practices can address nurturing care elements missing from UNICEF's C-IYCF CP. Sharing these practices can allow countries to make context-driven, evidence-informed decisions on the nurturing care content to prioritize.
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