Essential nutrition actions: improving maternal, newborn, infant and young child health and nutrition

This paper is one of the documents developed by WHO as a background for the Comprehensive Implementation Plan on maternal, infant and young child nutrition, endorsed by the World Health Assembly in its 65th meeting on May 2012. It provides a compact of WHO guidance on nutrition interventions (undernutrition, overweight/obesity, micronutrient deficiencies) targeting the first 1,000 days of life. Focusing on this package of essential nutrition actions (ENA), policy-makers could reduce infant and child mortality, improve physical and mental growth and development, and improve productivity.
Part I presents the interventions currently recommended by WHO, summarizes the rationale and the evidence, and describes the actions required to implement them. The document uses a life course approach, from pre-conception throughout the first 2 years of life.
Part II provides an analysis of community-based interventions aimed at improving nutrition and indicates how effective interventions can be delivered in an integrated fashion. It shows how the ENAs described in the first part have been implemented in large-scale programmes in various settings, what the outcomes have been, and to examine the evidence for attribution of changes in nutritional outcomes to programme activities.

WHO - 2013