Comparative analysis of infant nutrition in three croatian counties: Međimurje, Sisak-Moslavina and Šibenik-Knin using the child health card

The child health card, as a way of monitoring child health, is in use in all countries of European Union. During 1998, a pilot test of child health card applicability was carried out in three Croatian Counties. The card is an individual document, but also can be used for monitoring children's growth and development. Among other data, the health card can also be used to monitor nutrition modality, specially in infants. Our results are as follows: during 1-2 months in all the three observed counties in terms of nutrition modality, the most frequent form of nutrition was breast-feeding. At 3-4 months breast-feeding was still in first place, but there was a noticeable increase in the use of artificial nutrition over mixed nutrition in two counties: Sisak-Moslavina and Šibenik-Knin. It was noted that the state of infant nutrition during the second half of the first year of life is very poor in the County of Međimurje, due to the large number of infants fed with cow's milk (41%).