Infant and Young Child Feeding Recommendations When COVID-19 Is Suspected or Confirmed

"Community-based IYCF counselling and support...can ensure access to these services in the poorest and the most vulnerable communities with limited access to health care, and therefore become an important strategy for programming with an equity focus." - UNICEF

As a social and behaviour change communication (SBCC) intervention, counselling on infant and young child feeding (IYCF) in the context of COVID-19 remains critical for pregnant women, caregivers, and their young children. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) advise caregivers and families with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 to continue recommended IYCF practices with the necessary hygiene precautions. To support these efforts, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Advancing Nutrition and UNICEF, with the support of the Infant Feeding in Emergencies Core Group represented by Save the Children and Safely Fed Canada, have developed an IYCF counseling package featuring user-friendly graphics that can be used with low-literacy communities and/or translated and adapted for different contexts.

Created by a team of artists based in the Dominican Republic and Rwanda, the materials were reviewed by global experts and field-tested with professionals, IYCF counsellors, health workers, and mothers from different cultures, countries, and contexts in multiple settings. The package, which reflects WHO and UNICEF guidance on IYCF in the context of COVID-19, includes:

• 10 Counseling Cards [PDF, 11 pages] - depicting 10 practices (e.g., practice safe complementary feeding)
• Recommended Practices Booklet [PDF, May 2020, 17 pages] - provides notes on each of the 10 practices for healthcare providers and counsellors
• Field Test Interview Guide: IYCF Recommendations when COVID-19 Is Suspected or Confirmed [July 2020, 2 pages]
• Steps for Adapting Graphics and Recommended Practices from Infant and Young Child Feeding Recommendations When COVID-19 Is Suspected or Confirmed [July 2020, 3 pages]

The package builds on the UNICEF generic C-IYCF Counselling Package being used in more than 70 countries for counseling and training to promote improved behaviours for maternal and child nutrition. Many of the images were adapted from the IYCF Image Bank, a collection of over 700 images highlighting recommended IYCF practices found in multiple adaptations of the C-IYCF Package that was created by UNICEF and JSI through the JSI-led SPRING project (see Related Summaries, below).

The recommended practices booklet is available as a Microsoft Word and PDF document, and the counseling card images are available in both JPG and PDF formats. To learn about options for adapting existing images and graphic materials, or to create your own materials for your IYCF and COVID-19 programme needs, please email info@advancingnutrition.org for access to the Adobe InDesign source files for the layout graphics and illustrations used in the counseling cards.