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The Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition and Family Planning (MIYCN-FP) Community of Practice serves as a discussion space and library for people involved in the MICYN-FP integration working group. This group is open to anyone working and interested in nutrition, infant and young child feeding, and family planning or related fields and includes members from: USAID, Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program (MCHIP), World Vision, John Snow, Inc., PATH, CORE Group, University Research Co., Centre for Development and Population Activities, Jhpiego, ICF International, Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) at Georgetown University, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF), Save the Children, Strengthening Partnerships Results and Innovations in Nutrition Globally (SPRING), and Evidence to Action (E2A) for Strengthened Reproductive Health.

RESOURCES

The working group manages the MICYN-FP toolkit at http://k4health.org/toolkits/miycn-fp as a resource that presents a framework for linking maternal, infant and young child nutrition with family planning to improve maternal, infant and child health outcomes. The toolkit contains a summary of global evidence, guidelines on integration and advocacy, social and behavior change communication (SBCC) tools, capacity building and training resources, monitoring and evaluation resources, and examples of country experiences.

Mothers who exclusively breastfeed their infants during their first six months of life are more likely to improve the health of their infants and can take advantage of the lactational amenorrhea method (LAM) of family planning. Additionally, mothers need counseling on complementary feeding AND at the same time, FP services to transition from LAM that is no longer being practiced with the introduction of foods. Recent evidence shows that birth-to-pregnancy intervals of 24 months or more dramatically decrease the risk of child mortality, underweight and stunting. The MIYCN-FP toolkit is an excellent resource for program managers, health workers, policy makers including staff of Ministries of Health, global organizations, and other agencies.