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Dietary guidelines provide advice on what to eat but often do not take into account “how” to eat. Responsive feeding is a key dimension of responsive parenting, involving reciprocity between the child and caregiver during the feeding process and is characterized by caregiver guidance and recognition of the child’s cues of hunger and satiety. Evidence indicates that providing responsive feeding guidance to mothers on how to recognize and respond appropriately to children’s hunger and satiety cues can lead to improved feeding practices and weight status and developmental outcomes among infants and young children. Providing nurturing care to children has indeed been identified as a global priority but the feeding dimension remains untapped, in part, as a result of a lack of clear responsive feeding guidelines during the first 1,000 days of life.Read More →

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Published in the Journal of Public Health (February 2019), “The effect of a community-based, integrated and nurturing care intervention on early childhood development in rural China” explores whether attention to nurturing care can promote developmental health and reduce developmental delays. The community-based program was implemented in four counties of China, serving parents and their children aged 3 and under. The intervention included attention to all five components of nurturing care. Findings suggest that attention to nurturing care can lead to a reduction in the prevalence of suspected neurodevelopmental delay in children.Read More →

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A recent paper in The Journal of Nutrition recommends: “Expanding conceptual models of child development to include the 5 components of the Nurturing Care Framework”, and says: “…health and nutrition alone may not be sufficient if children do not experience the learning opportunities, responsive caregiving, and security and safety that are part of the Nurturing Care Framework.”Read More →

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The evidence for combined interventions is growing! In this systematic review and meta-analysis of early life interventions, the authors found that interventions that resulted in effects on linear growth (e.g., nutritional supplementation) were not significantly associated with effects on cognitive, language, or motor development scores. To ensure benefits for linear growth and neurobehavioural development we need to go beyond nutritional supplementation programming and include interventions targeting caregiving behaviour and learning opportunities that support the development of cognitive, language, motor, and social-emotional skills.Read More →

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Understanding donor, government and out-of-pocket funding for early child development (ECD) is important for tracking progress. This paper, published in the British Medical Journal’s Archives of Disease in Childhood, aims to estimate a baseline for the Nurturing Care Framework, with a special focus on childhood disability.Read More →

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The authors of this article in Lancet Global Health (June 2020) recommend UNICEF revise its conceptual framework of malnutrition and death to align with the associated Sustainable Development Goals and ensure children survive and thrive. The proposed revised conceptual framework recommends creating enabling environments at all levels and ensuring interventions address all five components of nurturing care.Read More →

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Note: You can access the most recent set of Early Childhood Development Country Profiles here. Affiliated with Countdown to 2030 women’s, children’s and adolescent health, these profiles of 91 low and middle income countries are the first step towards a global monitoring and accountability system for early childhood development. ClickRead More →