Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant: Infant feeding practices and maternal work in a context of rapid industrialization

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Adequate nutrition during the first two years of life is essential for proper growth/development and health. However, mothers must deal with competing demands of work and infant feeding, and the trade-offs they make between these demands have the potential to affect their own and their child's life history parameters. India is currently experiencing urbanization and the rise of professional opportunities for women that may alter IYCF practices, which heretofore have included extensive breastfeeding, and these in turn may have important impacts on infant growth and health. This project will investigate infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices and their relationship with maternal work in urban and rural India. To examine the trade-offs between IYCF practices and maternal economic activities, this study will employ a bio-cultural approach and a life history framework. This 12-month longitudinal study will examine the relationship between maternal work and the duration of exclusive breastfeeding, the quality and timing of the introduction of complementary foods, and ultimately how these are related to infant growth parameters and health. Furthermore, this study will also include ethnographic information on cultural norms and beliefs regarding IYCF practices, as well as allo-maternal care in a rapidly industrializing country and the relationship to IYCF practices. Examining maternal economic activities and IYCF practices allow for a better understanding of how to quantify the costs and benefits of different feeding strategies to both infants/children (in terms of growth and health) and mothers (in terms of economic and social gains or deficits) and how these vary based on household composition and the different employment opportunities that are available to women in the urban and rural samples.The data obtained from this study will be important in the context of policy discussions of the constraints imposed by the transition to the urban workforce on time available for breastfeeding and maternity leaves that are shorter than the current breastfeeding recommendations. This project will support the scientific training of a promising graduate student.