Escaping undernutrition:
Critical care in the first 1,000 days
Follow a mother’s journey as she seeks care for herself and her child under challenging circumstances that all too many children and their mothers face around the world.
Pregnant mothers should receive multiple-micronutrient supplementation, or MMS, and support and counseling to breastfeed once their child is born, to ensure healthy development.
Babies should be exclusively breastfed up until 6 months of age, and continue drinking breast milk until they are 2 years old, in addition to receiving two doses of vitamin A supplements per year.
Access to nutritious foods and supplements isn't easy for parents in food insecure areas, with minimal health facilities, or who may not have the financial resources or time to access them. In these settings, children may begin to suffer from severe undernutrition or wasting.
An adequately trained, professionalized workforce of community health workers can help parents access appropriate care by bringing it to their community. During home visits, they can assess children, treat them for wasting if needed, and refer them to health facilities for more complicated conditions.
Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food, or RUTF, is given to treat wasting in children between 6 months of age and 5 years old.
Still, only one in four children receive treatment for the deadly, but treatable, condition of wasting.
Underfinancing and complicated systems are compounded by parents struggling to take time off work, pay for transport and arrange childcare so that they can accompany their sick child to the proper health facilities.
If a child’s condition severely deteriorates and they cannot be treated by a community health worker, they may need to visit a clinic to recover.
This treatment often relies on separate organizations delivering separate protocols and products, frequently in separate locations, and is dependent on parallel supply chains managed by disparate U.N. and nongovernmental partners.
This system puts an undue burden on the mothers and children who must navigate it to survive, often demanding hours-long trips to health centers every week for six weeks or more.
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RUTF, is an energy-dense, life-saving product that gives wasted children the nutrients they need to survive.
MMS increases the chances a baby will be born at a healthy weight and survive to his or her second birthday.
Supplying a child with two high doses of vitamin A every year is one of the most cost-effective ways to protect children from blindness, diarrhea, and other fatal illnesses.
