Education of family members to support weaning to solids and nutrition in later infancy in term-born infants

Ojha, Shalini; Elfzzani, Zenab; Kwok, T'ng Chang; Dorling, Jon

Abstract

Review question

We reviewed the evidence for effects of nutrition education about appropriate feeding practices during weaning on growth and development in children born at term gestation.

Background

Around the world, over 150 million children are undernourished and over 42 million are overweight and obese. Providing families with appropriate education about feeding practices during weaning may help to optimise nutrition while helping to protect children who are at risk of undernutrition, as well as those susceptible to being overweight and obese.

Study characteristics

We examined research published up to December 2019 and found 21 clinical trials recruiting 14,241 babies. The nutrition education provided in all included studies, whereby analysis could be pooled together, was aimed at reducing the risk of undernutrition in childhood. Five studies were undertaken in high-income countries, but the findings reported could not be included and pooled together in this review.

Key results

We found that giving nutrition education about appropriate feeding practices during weaning to families in low- to moderate-income settings may improve weight and height at 12 months of age. We are very uncertain about the effects of nutrition education on children's development and risk of anaemia at one year of age, as only two studies reported each of these outcomes. Therefore, these results are described only in the text. We did not find any studies that assessed the effects of nutrition education on children's risk of overweight and obesity and reported outcomes that could be pooled together in this review.

Certainty of evidence

The certainty of evidence for the reduction in risk of childhood undernutrition with nutrition education is low to moderate at best due to limitations in study design and differences among the studies included in our review. The amount of improvement in growth noted is small and of unclear clinical significance. More long-term studies are needed to see if this improvement continues into later life, leading to bigger improvements. We rated the certainty of evidence for other outcomes included in this study as low due to the limited number of included studies.

Further research is needed to determine whether nutrition education can reduce risks of overnutrition and obesity in children.

Citation

Ojha, S., Elfzzani, Z., Kwok, T. C., & Dorling, J. (2020). Education of family members to support weaning to solids and nutrition in later infancy in term-born infants. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2020(7), https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd012241.pub2

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 22, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jul 25, 2020
• Publication Date: 2020
• Deposit Date: Aug 11, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 26, 2021
• Journal: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews
• Publisher: Cochrane Collaboration
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2020
• Issue: 7
• Article Number: CD012241
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.cd012241.pub2
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4827372