454 Gac Med Mex. 2020;156:454-457 Contents available at PubMed www.gacetamedicademexico.com Correspondence: *Pilar Torre E-mail: ptorre@correo.xoc.uam.mx Date of reception: 20-02-2020 Date of acceptance: 17-03-2020 DOI: 10.24875/GMM.M20000443 Introduction When analyzing the role of public health services with regard to infant feeding through a more far-reach- ing ethnographic case study, we found two problems related to infant feeding, observed in medical consul- tation for children younger than six months in a health center of Mexico City: low quality of anthropometry and inadequate identification of infant feeding modalities. 1 Infant feeding can be defined as human offspring’s passage from a single source of nutrition, breast milk –or some substitute– during the first months, to the varied diet of each family, a process that takes ap- proximately two years, when weaning or its equivalent occurs as bottle-feeding is discontinued. Various elements of mothers and their babies’ social, cultural, family and personal life point towards different modal- ities. A significant element is contact with health ser- vices, the information on infant nutrition that is provided in postnatal medical consultations at health centers. The World Health Organization proposes exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) up to six months of age, with continued breastfeeding along with complementary foods up to 24 months of age or longer. 2,3 The decline in the practice of breastfeeding (BF) in Mexico has been documented for decades. 4 In 2015, the National Survey of Boys, Girls and Women indicated that 94.9 % of children younger than two years had been breastfed some time; 51 % of women breastfed the newborn within the first postpartum Abstract The way in which two clinical procedures related to infant feeding are carried out in medical consultations for children young- er than six months in a health center in Mexico City is analyzed. The first one refers to infants’ anthropometric measurement, and the second, to feeding modalities’ identification. Corrective actions are required based on the quality of children’s health care in the public sector. KEY WORDS: Infant feeding. Anthropometry. Feeding modality. Deficiencias en la labor clínica relacionada con la alimentación infantil Resumen Se analiza la forma como se llevan a cabo dos procesos clínicos relacionados con la alimentación infantil en las consultas médicas de niños menores de seis meses atendidos en un centro de salud de la Ciudad de México. El primero se refiere a la medición antropométrica de los infantes y el segundo, a la identificación de las modalidades alimentarias. Se requieren acciones correctivas en función de la calidad en la atención a la salud infantil en el sector público. PALABRAS CLAVE: Alimentación infantil. Antropometría. Modalidad alimentaria. Clinical deficiencies in infant feeding Pilar Torre* Health Care Department, Health and Society Area, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Unidad Xochimilco, Mexico City, Mexico 0016-3813/© 2020 Academia Nacional de Medicina de México, A.C.. Published by Permanyer. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). GACETA MÉDICA DE MÉXICO BRIEF COMMUNICATION No part of this publication may be reproduced or photocopying without the prior written permission of the publisher. © Permanyer 2020