Infant feeding guidelines emphasize that breast milk is the best nutrition for infants.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers and practitioners must learn from mistakes made during the HIV pandemic, when breastfeeding was undermined through isolating infants from their mothers, and formula feeding resulted in more infant deaths than the disease.

This paper provides an evolutionary perspective on why modern complementary food diets are often inadequate, asserting that inadequate diets and nutritional deficiencies have likely been a part of the human condition since the agricultural revolution.

Exposure to factors related to pregnant and recently delivered women’s households and health services could optimize maternal nutrition practices and the delivery of maternal nutrition interventions.