Infant and Young Child Feeding

Dear Colleagues,

We are organizing a Special Issue on “Infant and Young Child Feeding” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

The provision of sufficient, adequate, and safe nutrition during the first years of life is essential to infant development but also provides the basis for healthy eating patterns that can extend to adulthood. Supportive environments, both physical and emotional, for the promotion of breastfeeding, the introduction of solid foods, and the provision of healthy diets in early years are important to child health. Examples of these environments are the neonatal environment, home and early years establishments, family, workplaces, community support, health care/policy support, and, more recently, “online/virtual” space. Understanding the role of nature and nurture (environment) on feeding practices during early years using an evidence-based approach is needed to plan interventions to optimize outcomes and practice. The evaluation of interventions to improve infant feeding practices that are of public health relevance is essential to inform practice and policy. Global infant feeding issues such as undernutrition and nutrition transition will also be considered.

This Special Issue seeks papers on infant feeding, including those on the impact of diet and environmental conditions on public health. Epidemiological and intervention studies, high-quality qualitative studies, and novel and high-quality narrative or systematic reviews will be considered. Cross-sectional surveys not properly powered or those purely describing nutrition surveys using non-representative samples will not be prioritized. 

The venue is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes articles and communications in the interdisciplinary area of environmental health sciences and public health. For detailed information on the journal, we refer you to http://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph.

The listed keywords suggest just a few of the many topics of interest.

Dr. Ada Garcia
Prof. Dr. Amy Brown
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.