Approximately 45 billion messages are exchanged on the platform every day. More than 1.32 billion users were registered with WeChat throughout the world by Q2 2019, and more than 1.15 billion people were monthly active users. In China, one of the most popular smartphone apps is WeChat, which offers services such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and others, on a single platform. ![]() With the widespread use of smartphones, using apps in the health sector for delivering health care services and health promotion is an increasing phenomenon. Therefore, new channels are needed in rural China to deliver effective infant feeding education. However, research has indicated that mothers in rural areas rarely receive feeding information from health facilities their main sources of information were family members and friends, who were unlikely to have access to better information and may have misinformed mothers. Since 2009, China has been implementing a national program called Basic Public Health Service, in which health care workers are required to provide face-to-face breastfeeding and complementary feeding counseling to pregnant women and mothers throughout antenatal and postnatal care. In China, breastfeeding education is generally implemented through the rural 3-tier health care system (county-township-village) at antenatal and postnatal care. Although interventions on breastfeeding promotion vary worldwide, education and support are the 2 most common approaches, and interventions on exclusive breastfeeding containing these 2 elements have mixed success. Positive breastfeeding outcomes are usually related to the improvement of maternal breastfeeding knowledge and attitudes. Therefore, much effort is required to explore effective ways to control this downward trend, and hence, to promote breastfeeding in China. According to the Chinese national data, the exclusive breastfeeding rate under 6 months was 27.6% in 2008 and 20.7% in 2013 (the weighted exclusive breastfeeding rate was 18.6%), which showed a downward trend. In China, the exclusive breastfeeding rate for under 6 months of age is a concern and achieving the 2025 global target remains an ongoing challenge. ![]() Moreover, one of the WHO global nutrition targets for 2025 is increasing the exclusive breastfeeding rate in the first 6 months of life to at least 50%. Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recommend that children should be exclusively breastfed from birth to 6 months of age and continually breastfed until they are 2 years old or older. As a part of optimal feeding practices, exclusive breastfeeding is recognized as a cornerstone of child survival and health, by providing essential irreplaceable nutrition for a child’s growth and development. Appropriate child feeding is the foundation for good nutritional intake and healthy development and is a critical factor for health in adults.
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