Open Access
Subscription Access
Open Access
Subscription Access
Growth Monitoring in Under-Three Children Using the Mother Child Protection Card
Subscribe/Renew Journal
Right from its inception, ICDS programme envisaged monthly weighing and monitoring of growth in under-three children for early detection of under-nutrition. Currently accurate portable digital balances are available in anganwadi and Mother Child Production Card (MCPC) with child growth charts has been provided to children. A community based mixed longitudinal study was taken up in under-three children from urban low middle income families to assess feasibility and impact of growth monitoring and appropriate nutrition education using MCPC. Monthly weighing of children and plotting the weight-for-age in the MCPC was carried out by the research staff. A total of 5708 children were enrolled and followed up over 32879 visits between 2015 and 2019. Plotting the weight-for-age of the child in growth chart enabled identification of underweight children at the time of the visit so that appropriate nutrition and health education and care can be provided. Monthly weighing and plotting weight-for-age in growth chart enabled identification of small children growing along their own trajectory and prevented them from being mislabelled as under-nourished. Children showing deterioration in Weight for age Z score (WAZ) as compared to earlier visit(s) were readily identified and given needed advice. Personalised nutrition and health education provided at each visit taking into account current nutritional status, morbidity and Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices (IYCF) helped in preventing rise in underweight rates in the first 18 months and brought about some improvement in nutritional status of moderate and severely underweight children. It is feasible to operationalize growth monitoring as envisaged in Poshan Abhiyaan and accelerate the pace of reduction in under-nutrition in under three children.
Keywords
Urban, Under-Three Children, Low Middle Income Families, Growth Monitoring, Mother Child Protection Card, Nutritional Status.
User
Information
- National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau: Technical Report for the year 1979 and pooled report .1974-1979 available athttps://www.nin.res.in/downloads/Report_for_the_year_1979.pdf Accessed on 28 July2020
- ICDS programme Ministry of Women and Child Development: Integrated child development services program (ICDS) available at www./icds-wcd.nic.in/frameworkapip.pdf Accessed on 28 July 2020.
- Ramachandran, P. and Kalaivani, K. Nutrition transition in India: Challenges in achieving global targets. Proc. Ind. Nat. Sci. Acad., 2018, 84, 821-833.
- IIPS. National Family Health Survey-1 available at http://rchiips.org/nfhs/pub_nfhs-1.shtml, accessed on 28 July 2020
- IIPS. ‘National Family Health Survey-2 available at http://rchiips.org/nfhs/pub_nfhs-2.shtml, accessed on 28 July 2020
- IIPS. National Family Health Survey- 3. available at http://rchiips.org/nfhs/pub_nfhs-3.shtml, accessed on 28 July 2020
- IIPS ‘National Family Health Survey-4 Fact sheet available at http://rchiips.org/nfhs/pub_nfhs-4.shtml, accessed on 28 July 2020.
- NNMB technical reports 21 to 26 available at http://nnmbindia.org/NNMBREPORTS-web.pdf accessed on 28 July 2020
- Prabhakar, K., Kalaivani, K., Kowsalya, S. and Ramachandran, P. Use of mother child protection card for improving infant feeding practices. Ind. J. Nutr. Diet., 2019, 56, 351-364.
- Lakshmi, R.V., Subapriya, M., Kalaivani, K. and Ramachandran, P. Nutritional status of preschool children from urban low income families. Ind. J. Nutr. Diet., 2019, 56, 265-273.
Abstract Views: 308
PDF Views: 1