Interpersonal counseling sessions during routine immunization visits improve infant feeding practices - A randomized...

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Pediatrics
• Nutrition Science

Background:

• Existing infant and young child feeding interventions are often broad and resource-intensive.
• Focused counseling during critical developmental periods is under-explored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of two brief counseling sessions on exclusive breastfeeding, complementary feeding, and child weight.
• To assess the feasibility of integrating feeding counseling into routine immunization visits.

Main Methods:

• A randomized controlled trial involving 92 mother-child dyads in Delhi, India.
• Interpersonal counseling on breastfeeding and complementary feeding provided during routine pentavalent vaccine doses.
• Intention-to-Treat analysis using Chi-square tests and linear mixed models.

Main Results:

• Higher rates of exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months in the intervention group (RR: 1.67).
• Significantly improved timely initiation of complementary feeding (RR: 2.60).
• Greater infant weight gain observed in the intervention group.

Conclusions:

• Two one-to-one interpersonal counseling sessions effectively enhance infant feeding practices and promote healthy weight gain.
• Routine immunization platforms can be leveraged to scale up Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) counseling programs.
• Findings support the integration of targeted nutrition counseling within national health programs like MAA (Mothers Absolute Affection).