Nutrition: A Mother & Child in Ethiopia

Khatidja, couldn't hold back a smile as she bounced her baby boy on her hip and recounted how in just three weeks he had gone from listless, weak and malnourished, to bright-eyed and energetic. Concerned that her youngest wasn't gaining weight and getting progressively weaker, Khatidja brought him to an International Medical Corps-supported health center in the region. Her baby was enrolled into the outpatient therapeutic program (OTP) - an 8-week intervention that includes the provision of specially formulated ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) to treat severe acute malnutrition and nutrition education for caregivers to maintain long-term success. After their condition improves, children are then referred to a supplementary feeding program where other foods are introduced to stabilize a malnourished child's health. In OTP, Khatidja was given RUTF to rapidly and safely increase her baby's weight. She was also assigned a Health Extension Worker (HEW) named Miskiy, a local community member trained in healthy nutrition practices by International Medical Corps. HEWs like Miskiy are able to provide culturally appropriate and up-to-date information on healthy nutrition practices in the local dialect to parents in their communities.

Khatidja fed her baby boy the RUTF and noticed he quickly began to respond. She also returned for weekly weigh-ins and medical checkups and worked with Miskiy to address some of the reasons her youngest child, as well as the rest of her children, were not at their healthiest. Miskiy stressed the importance of breastfeeding her baby and preparing healthy meals in the home for all her children. She also taught Khatidja the importance of hand washing before meal preparation and boiling water collected from local ponds for drinking. The family previously drank contaminated, brown, murky water directly from these sources, as clean drinking water is scarce in the drought-prone region. Drinking contaminated water leads to diarrheal diseases that can cause dehydration, malnutrition, even death if not treated quickly.

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Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Nutrition
• Drought
• east
• africa
• famine