Maternal and Infant Nutrition and Nurture Unit (MAINN)

The Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding recommends that infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life and thereafter receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding for up to two years of age or beyond. However, almost a third of children are malnourished and only 35% of infants worldwide are exclusively breastfed for even the first four months of life.   The imperative to improve maternal and infant nutritional status has never been greater. Mothers and infants form a biological and social unit and their health and wellbeing are intricately linked. Governments will be unsuccessful in their efforts to accelerate economic development in any significant long-term sense until optimal maternal and child nutrition is ensured.

In MAINN, we recognise the complex political, socio-cultural and economic influences upon eating, feeding and nutrition. Maternal diet and infant feeding practices relate substantially to local cultural norms and constraints; consequently we adopt a bio-cultural perspective that recognises the complex interactions between socio-cultural and biological factors in food and health. We are also interested in the synergistic and long-term effects of nutrition, and in the nature of the relationship that is engendered between mother and infant as a consequence of various kinds of nutritive and nurturing behaviour. The work extends to philosophical and epistemological considerations related to breastfeeding specifically, and other kinds of nutritive and nurturing behaviour in the childbearing and infant period in general. We also have a special focus on care of the preterm neonate and in ways of enhancing family-centred care in the neonatal unit context. The agenda of MAINN is firmly grounded in public health. We have worked on WHO, UNICEF, European Union (EU Framework 6), Government (DH), NHS, National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), TrusTECH® Service Innovation (UK), British Council and Australian Research Council (ARC) funded projects. We are currently involved in projects in Africa, Australia, Pakistan, Sweden and UK.

Strategic objectives:

• To conduct distinctive, inter-disciplinary, internationally recognised research and scholarship in maternal and infant nutrition and nurture.
• To engage with local, national and international strategic initiatives.
• To embrace the public health, social exclusion and diversity agendas with regard to the field of maternal and infant nutrition and nurture.
• To ensure service-user involvement in all aspects of MAINN’s planning and delivery.
• To maintain and build upon strong and stable external partnerships and collaborations to include the DH, NHS, NICE, UNICEF and WHO.