Increasing appropriate complementary feeding in rural Uttar Pradesh: Implications for behavior change communication

The Population Council conducted a formative study in rural Uttar Pradesh, India to determine current complementary feeding practices among children aged 6–23 months; understand the facilitating factors and barriers in adopting appropriate complementary feeding practices; and identify programmatic and behavior change communication (BCC) initiatives that could promote the adoption of appropriate complementary feeding practices. The qualitative study shows that women and family members did not feed a measured quantity of food to their children. A lack of knowledge and lack of communication created barriers to initiating complementary feeding. The policy brief recognized education and antenatal care as facilitating factors and recommends audience segmentation, awareness-building among women and their families, alignment of BCC and interpersonal communication messages, and building the image of frontline health workers as foundations of BCC strategy