Session 4: Community nutrition action for child survival

Purpose:

To introduce six community-appropriate nutrition and health interventions that can reduce malnutrition and improve child survival through growth monitoring, promotion of breastfeeding, improved weaning practices, oral rehydration therapy, immunization and family planning.

Time: 1/2 hour

Materials:

- Handout - "Community Nutrition Action for Child Survival "

- Trainer's Reference - "Estimates of Child Survival through Intervention"

- Newsprint and marking pens

Note: This session can be used as an introduction to the following units in Part I of this module.

Steps:

1. Introduction: In the previous sessions we discussed the many causes and effects of malnutrition in women and children. What can be done to improve nutrition and thus, the survival and quality of life for women and young children? There are probably as many ways to improve nutrition as there are causes of malnutrition. Some interventions are more expensive and more time consuming than others. Some require highly trained "experts." Many, however, can be carried out by community members and families if they are given only a little training and support.

What are these community nutrition interventions?

2. Distribute the Handout - "Community Nutrition Action for Child Survival." Review each of the six interventions with the trainees. These interventions and the roles that community members can play in their introduction will be covered in detail in the following units.

3. Use the UNICEF estimates of child lives that could be saved each year to demonstrate the dramatic effect that these simple interventions could have on child survival.

HANDOUT

COMMUNITY NUTRITION ACTION FOR CHILD SURVIVAL

TRAINER'S REFERENCE

ESTIMATES OF CHILD SURVIVAL THROUGH INTERVENTION

Disease/Condition	Estimated No. of Deaths Per Year	Lives that Could Be Saved	Community Interventions
Malnutrition/ Low birth weight	3 million	1 million	- Growth monitoring - Maternal nutrition - Breastfeeding - Improved weaning - Family planning
Immunizable diseases	3.3-5 million	3-4.5 million	- Immunization
Diarrhea/ Dehydration	5 million	2.5-3.5 million	- Oral rehydration therapy
	13 million	9 million

 

Adapted from UNICEF. "A Child Survival and Development Revolution. "

Assignment Children. Geneva, 1983, p. 51.

HANDOUT

REFERENCES

American Public Health Association. Mothers and Children. Quarterly Newsletter, various editions.

Cameron, M. and Hofvander, Y. Manual on Feeding Infants and Young Children. Oxford University Press, 1983.

Center for Population and Family Health. Family Planning: Its Impact on the Health of Women and Children. Columbia University, 1981.

Hamilton S., Popkin, B. and Spicer, D. Women and Nutrition In Third World Countries. Praeger, New York, 1984.

Jelliffe, D.B. Child Nutrition in Developing Countries. U.S. Agency for International Development, Washington, D.C., 1969.

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. "A Child Survival and Development Revolution." Assignment Children. Geneva, 1983.

World Council of Churches. Contact. "The Nutrition of Mothers and Children" 50. Christian Medical Commission, April 1979.

World Federation of Public Health Associations. Improving Maternal Health in Developing Countries. Washington, D.C., 1984.

___ . Maternal Nutrition. Washington, D.C., 1983.

___. Oral Rehydration Therapy. Washington, D.C., 1983.

World Health Organization. Guidelines for Training Community Health Workers in Nutrition. WHO Offset Publication No. 59. Geneva, 1981.

___. Towards a Better Future, Maternal Child Health. Geneva, 1980.