Early Initiation of Breastfeeding: Global Child Health Indicator

Global data tracks the percentage of children born in the last 24 months who were put to the breast within one hour of birth. The dataset is sourced from UNICEF Data and Analytics and is available in CSV and XML formats. It provides a standardized metric for monitoring progress on a key infant and young child feeding practice.

Use Cases

• Monitoring progress on global nutrition targets based on the early breastfeeding indicator.
• Analyzing trends in newborn care practices across different regions.
• Informing public health interventions aimed at improving infant feeding practices.
• Benchmarking country-level performance against international standards.

Strengths

• Sourced from a reputable international organization (UNICEF Data and Analytics).
• Has a clear, standardized public health indicator definition.
• Available under an open license (CC-BY-3.0-IGO).

Limitations

• Specific column names and data structure are not described in the provided metadata.
• The exact number of rows, geographic coverage, and temporal range are not specified.
• The future 'last updated' date (2026-04-21) suggests potential metadata inaccuracy.

Provenance

Source

UNICEF Data and Analytics (HQ)

Freshness

Last updated: 2026-04-21 10:36:12.252817

Geography

Global (inferred from description and organization)