Comparison of infant feeding patterns reported for nonindustrial populations with current recommendations

The observation that young child-feeding practices rarefy conform to curren t global recommendations is of major public health nutrition policy concern and raises questions about whether near-universal compliance with recommen dations is feasible in any population. This analysis uses indicators of age at introduction of complementary foods and termination of breastfeeding av ailable from ethnographic and demographic reports published between 1873 an d 1998 to test the hypothesis that recent and contemporary nonindustrial so cieties practice patterns of infant feeding concordant with current global recommendations. Results suggest that ethno-graphically reported average ag es at introduction of nonbreast milk liquids (4.5 +/- 6.0 mo) and solids (5 .0 +/- 4.0 mo) and the duration of breastfeeding (29.0 +/- 10.0 mo) among a sample of 113 such populations concord with those at which key weaning tra nsitions are biologically optimal for most normal healthy children. However , wide variation in estimates across populations remains unexplained and se rious limitations in the available data preclude proper assessment of the u nderlying distribution of the timing of weaning transitions within populati ons.