Counselling Cards on Infant and Young Child Feeding in the Context of COVID-19  

Dear colleagues,

Counselling on infant and young child feeding (IYCF) should remain a critical component of nutrition programming in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. UNICEF and USAID-funded Advancing Nutrition have developed a package of Infant and Young Child Feeding Recommendations when COVID-19 is Suspected or Confirmed. Developed with technical support by the Infant Feeding in Emergencies Core Group, represented by Save the Children and Safely Fed Canada – the Counseling Package includes a set of 10 Counselling Cards and Recommended Practices Booklet.    

The Counselling Package translates the global recommendations by UNICEF and WHO on IYCF in the context of COVID-19, into user-friendly messages and images that have been field-tested across regions and can be adapted to local contexts. Countries can find many of the images that were adapted for use in this counselling package in the Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) Image Bank, an open-access collection of more than 700 images developed or adapted for the UNICEF Community Infant and Young Child Feeding Counselling Package. The IYCF counseling cards and recommended practices may be periodically updated to reflect new or emerging evidence.

Previous briefs related to nutrition programming in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic are available here. Read and share!