The report has been prepared by a national consortium of public health groups including government departments, AIIMS and UNICEF, under the World Breastfeeeding Trends Initiative (WBTI).
Key Findings:
- India has made some progress on early initiation of breastfeeding over the years. Between National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-3 and NFHS-4, early initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth has improved from 23.4% to 41.5%.
- But, this hasn’t kept pace with the huge increase in institutional deliveries which more than doubled during the same period, from 38.7 % to 78.9%.
- Reasons for slow progress (despite improvement in institutional deliveries): Lack of supportive work environment and inadequate skills of health care providers.
