[Verified Answer]: How long should an infant be breast-fed

How long should an infant be breast-fed? Recommendations regarding how long infants in developing countries should be breast-fed are controversial. If the nutritional quality of the breast milk is inadequate because the mothers are malnourished, then there is risk of inadequate nutrition for the infant. On the other hand, the introduction of other foods carries the risk of infection from contamination. Further complicating the situation is the fact that companies that produce infant formulas and other foods benefit when these foods are consumed by large numbers of customers. One question related to this controversy concerns the amount of energy intake for infants who have other foods introduced into the diet at different ages. Part of one study compared the energy intakes, measured in kilocalories per day (kcal/d), for infants wh