Nutrition Overview

Proper nutrition during pregnancy and in early childhood improves children’s health and the quality of their lives for years to come.
Pregnancy to 2 years of age is the critical period when nutrition most affects a child’s life. If they do not receive proper nutrition before their second birthday, children may die or suffer irreversible physical and cognitive damage that continues into adulthood and across generations.

Two billion people in the developing world suffer due to poor nutrition.
Foods rich in vitamins and minerals are essential for a healthy diet. When the diets of pregnant women and young children do not contain sufficient amounts of essential nutrients, the consequences include significantly lower birth weight, permanent disability, impaired cognitive development, and increased susceptibility to disease.

Undernutrition is an underlying cause of more than one-third of all child deaths in developing countries
Malnutrition weakens the immune system and increases children’s risk of death due to infections such as diarrhea and pneumonia. Malnourished mothers are more likely to face pregnancy complications and deliver low birth weight infants. Proven effective nutrition interventions are available and if implemented at scale could reduce the number of child deaths and prevent the immediate and long-term consequences of undernutrition.

Improved breastfeeding behaviors could save over a million infant deaths in developing countries.
Breastfeeding, when practiced optimally, is one of the most effective ways to ensure child health and survival. Optimal breastfeeding starts within 1 hour of birth, is exclusive for the first 6 months of life, and continues, with age-appropriate complementary feeding, for the first 2 years.

We’re working to improve diets of people in the developing world and ensure proper nutrition for young children and their mothers.

Our work in nutrition affects, directly or indirectly, many of the health issues we address at the foundation. It is central to our success in helping all people lead healthy, productive lives.

Next: Our Approach

Our vision is for all children to have the nutrition they need for a healthy start to life.
To address it, we work through our partners to support the following interventions:

Research and development that promotes healthy pregnancies and early childhood growth
There are a number of knowledge gaps that limit the development of effective nutritional interventions for mothers and their infants. We are supporting research and development in collaboration with other programs at the foundation to answer these questions and translate findings and insights into products and interventions whose impact can be tested and proven.

Development and testing of interventions to increase optimal breastfeeding
While virtually all women in the developing world breastfeed their infants, the majority do not do so optimally, contributing to over a million avoidable child deaths each year. That’s why we’re supporting new models that address behavioral barriers to optimal breastfeeding.

Close knowledge gaps and test interventions to address micronutrient deficiencies
Micronutrient deficiencies affect brain and cognitive development, reduce physical growth, and contribute to deaths among women and children. We’re supporting multiple efforts to test novel tools to efficiently measure the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies and develop and deliver micronutrient-rich foods where they are most needed. Fortification and biofortification, which involve enriching food products by adding micronutrients to them, are a promising way to reach women and children with these needed nutrients.

Gather and disseminate the evidence base on nutrition for decision makers
While proven interventions to prevent and treat undernutrition exist, they often are not deployed due to lack of leadership or funding. We are supporting a number of efforts including the Scale Up Nutrition (SUN) movement to stimulate donors, the private sector, and governments to spend more, and spend more wisely, on nutrition.