Infant nutrition and complementary feeding

Although health professionals generally promote breastfeeding, there remain professional and/or ethical incongruities. The widespread promotion of breast milk substitutes – more natural than aggressive marketing – has challenged efforts to support breastfeeding globally. Indeed, many professional medical and nursing organisations continue to accept sponsorship from commercial milk formula (CMF) manufacturers even when these violate the Code (see later). Many medical and nursing curricula pay only lip service to this topic. One of the aims of this article is to look at these issues in more depth as well as provide the reader with an overview of the history and evolution of complementary feeding (CF).