section 6
Monitoring height and weight
1 year
39 meeting
Let’s review:
Once the meeting starts, welcome everyone and ask the participants: • Who can help us remember what we talked about in our last meeting? • Who was able to do the activity at home that we asked you to do at the end of the meeting? How did it go? • Does anyone have questions or concerns after doing the activity?
What are we going to learn? Families and communities continue to learn how to monitor the growth of a child to ensure his/her health. LET’S TALK ABOUT IT! We are going to look at some pictures, so we can talk about what we all know about this topic. In your community, how do parents determine that a one-year old child is healthy or not?
How much do you think a one-year-old child should weigh? How often are you weighing and measuring the growth of your child? Why do you think it is important to do this?
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Activity:
“For good nutrition” We will think about the best ways to provide enough food for the children.
What we’ll need: • Flipchart • Markers
¿COMO LO VAMOS A HACER? • Ask the group what the biggest challenges they have in being able to provide enough food for their children. • Are they problems of not enough production? • Are they problems of lack of proper food storage options? • Write each of the major problems that the group listed on a separate piece of paper and post the papers on the wall. Then divide into small groups and think of different ways they can work within the community to solve the issues and assure that each child is receiving adequate nutrition. Write these ideas on the flipchart. • To conclude, ask for a promise from everyone to work together to solve at least 2 or 3 of the main problems to help decrease the amount of malnutrition of children within the community.
Summing up:
What did we learn today? Now, we’ll review what we discussed today. • How do you feel after this meeting? Why? • What are the two most important things you’ve learned today? • What will you do differently based on what you learned during the meeting? • What did you like the most? Are there things you didn’t like? • Do you have any remaining concerns or questions about what we talked about? To finish: what would you recommend to improve today’s meeting when we do it again with another group. (Explain that replying this question will help the meeting be even better in the future for parents with small children.)
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To do at home:
• Tell families to follow up with the ideas and promises that were made during the meeting to help solve the problems of malnutrition, especially for small children and mothers that are pregnant or breastfeeding. • Tell families to decide on a place where they can mark the growth of their children each month – it can be on a wall or a tree – so that children can enjoy seeing and talking about their growth.
Basic information for the facilitator: Learning more about monitoring height and weight: 1- What is a growth curve? A growth curve is a guide that helps parents and health workers
know how a child is growing. The curves are based on the healthy growth of children all around the world. There is one curve to show if the child is growing well in height for his or her age. There is a curve which shows whether or not a child is growing well in terms of weight for his or her age. There is a third curve that shows whether the child’s weight is appropriate for his or her current height. If a child shows up in the green he or she has acceptable growth. It is important that a healthy child follows his or her growth line. If a child is in the red section this means that he or she needs to improve his or her growth and may need extra attention in terms of a nutritious diet as well as treatment of any infections. If a child is underweight he or she can improve growth and move up on the growth chart with a healthy diet and treatment of parasites, diarrhea and other infections and illnesses.
2- What is stunting? Stunting is when a child is very short for his or her age. This is usually the result of a diet that is not adequate in vitamins, minerals and protein in the first 2 years of life or repeated infections.
Stunting is often a result of a combination of poor diet and many infections. Stunting or short stature is what we see on the outside, but at the same time a child may not have full development of his or her intellectual and social potential. It is very difficult to reverse stunting after 3 years of age. In order to address stunting it is essential to work in infant and young child feeding in the first 2 years of life with attention to exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months, and introducing nutritious complementary foods starting at 6 months.
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3- When is a child underweight? A child is considered underweight when he or she weighs less
than expected for his or her age. This can be reversed with special attention to improve the child’s diet and to ensure that the child does not have parasites, diarrhea, or other infections, which could affect growth. An underweight child needs to gain more weight than a healthy child in order to move into the green on the growth curve.
4- What is acute malnutrition? Acute malnutrition is when a child is very thin or has low weight for his or her height. This often occurs very quickly for example in emergency situations when there is food insecurity. A child can also become acutely malnourished as a result of a diarrhea or other infections. This child may have loss of appetite and will need a healthy diet, lots of encouragement and care. It will also be important to ensure that this child has no infections.
Facilitator’s Manual