How mothers of newborn are learning to tackle malnutrition in Mumbai slum Using a model based on the World Health Organization's Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition principles, SNEHA tackles gaps in nutrition
“I think I perhaps knew how to hold a baby and play with one before I had my own, but not really anything else. I didn’t know what to expect when I got pregnant. Growing up, talking about diet and the best types of food isn’t really anything I remember,” recounted Sumita Anil Dhumale, 23, a mother of two.Like many mothers with little education, who marry young and move far from home, Sumita had to fend for herself in an unfamiliar city with her first child, taking advice from her mother-in-law on feeding and hygiene practices. When it came to her second child, however, a local anganwadi (government-
run child care centre) worker made sure she delivered at government-run Sion Hospital in central Mumbai and that the baby was taken in regularly for weighing and check-up sessions to monitor his development. “I’ve learnt now to not make the same mistakes I used to,” Sumita told IndiaSpend on a recent August morning. “Earlier, I used to mix gripe water [a solution known to contain alcohol and other non-natural ingredients] in his milk to keep him quiet while I went to work. When I started visiting the anganwadi, I learnt this could damage the brain and affect his growth so I’ve stopped now.” Outside the dimly lit single-room home that Sumita shares with her husband and two children, barefoot kids ran along narrow planks covering open drains. Fumes emanated from gas stoves on which lunch was being cooked in the cramped houses piled on top of each other.Sumita is a resident of Palwadi, a low-income area in Dharavi, Asia’s third largest slum by population. Bandra-Kurla-Complex (BKC), Mumbai’s newest business district filled with shiny glass-front buildings and restaurants serving global cuisine, may be a 10-minute drive away but is a world removed. At Dharavi, sanitation and civic amenities are sparse, and the environment so polluted that residents are highly vulnerable to illness and disease.The Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action (SNEHA), a local NGO, has worked across 10 beats in Dharavi for five years, and its efforts have reduced wasting among children up to three years of age by 23% and produced a 109% increase in the services received by children in the area through the Integrated Child Development Services Scheme (ICDS), a government programme covering health, food and primary education, according to data recorded by SNEHA’s field staff. Why malnutrition must be eradicated
READ FULL ARTICLE COVERAGE HERE . .