Breastmilk is the gold standard for infant and young child feeding. The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF recommend that children be exclusively breastfed for the first six months and continue to receive breastmilk up to two years of age or beyond. Yet, the proliferation of varying breastmilk substitutes, including follow-up formula, increasingly undermines exclusive…

This November, the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) will continue its review of the Follow-Up Formula Standard. The key consideration at this year’s meeting is whether to define both categories of follow-up formula as breastmilk substitutes. In doing so, follow-up formula would fall under the same marketing guidelines as…

Infant and young child nutrition advocates are invited to participate in a series of webinars to inform and prepare those interested in or attending the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) meeting in Berlin from the 26th to the 30th November 2018. On the agenda of the meeting is the revision…

The ARCH team is celebrating World Breastfeeding Week (August 1-7) to elevate the importance of breastfeeding and highlight the barriers that women face when deciding how to feed their babies. Headlines over the past month have brought breastfeeding to the forefront, igniting a debate over the influence that breastmilk substitute manufacturers have (or don’t have)…

July 12, 2018 As a global health organization, Helen Keller International (HKI) fully supports the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidance on optimal infant and young child feeding which promotes the early initiation of breastfeeding at birth followed by exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months when appropriate complementary foods should be introduced alongside continued breastfeeding until the…

Writing for Malnutrition Deeply, ARCH Director Elizabeth Zehner explains the significance of the newly released 2018 Access to Nutrition Index and what it says about the behavior of breast-milk substitute manufacturers: Since 1981, The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on countries, health systems and manufacturers to implement the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes as part…

Since 2015, ARCH has investigated how commercially produced foods for infants and young children are promoted in various countries and settings. Our research was sparked by a growing concern that optimal infant and child feeding practices – such as exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months – are increasingly undermined by the inappropriate and aggressive…