Effective Means to Address Moderately Malnourished Children
Condition: Malnutrition
MeSH terms: Malnutrition
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      Supplementary feeding and intensive IEC at the community level will effectively reduce
      moderate PEM compared to the control children within 3 months .

      Intensive nutrition education at the household level will reduce by at least one third of the
      prevalence of moderate malnutrition (40% of present level) within a short period of 3 months
    

Detailed description: 
      Bangladesh is one of the countries having highest proportions of malnourished children in the
      world. The Bangladesh Integrated nutrition Project (BINP) is a recent initiative of the
      Government of Bangladesh to reduce malnutrition of women and children under two years of age.
      The BINP includes a specific programme to address severely malnourished children at the
      community level, however there is no such programme directed toward moderately malnourished
      children. Moderately malnourished children form a large proportion of children in the
      community, and with success of the BINP, this proportion is growing, as severely malnourished
      children shift to the moderately malnourished category. To address this, operations research
      will be undertaken in a BINP thana named Shahrasti, in Chandpur District over a 6 month
      period. A total of 300 children in three groups from Community Nutrition Centres (CNC) will
      be studied. There will be groups in the study. In addition to usual component of the BINP,
      mothers of the first group of intervention will receive intensive nutrition education and
      motivation for child care, complementary food demonstration, and household food mobilization
      for child feeding weekly for first four weeks then reinforced every two weeks. The second
      intervention group will receive a packet of the usual BINP food supplement daily for 6 days a
      week for 3 months and nutrition education at the same intensity. The third group will be a
      control group and will receive only the usual programme inputs of BINP and their weight gain
      will be recorded. The CNP, women group and village nutrition committee will be involved.
      Focus group discussion will be held with mothers. Data on morbidity will be collected and
      necessary medical advise will be given equal to each group. Data collection, counseling on
      child caring practice, food demonstration and nutrition education using IEC will be organized
      and supervised by project staff. It is assumed that if the intervention is successful, and
      once the nutritional status improves, they are likely to maintain good health. The IEC on
      dietary practice will be communicated to the village members for preventive measures. Data
      will be analyzed for change in nutrition groups from moderate to mild malnutrition or normal
      nutrition and will be compared between the control and two intervention groups. It is
      expected that the results of the study will help to address to reduce moderate malnutrition
      existing in the large proportion of malnourished children. This will in turn reduce the risk
      of regressing to severe malnutrition.
    

Intervention name(s): Food supplementation and nutrition education; Nutrition education; Control Group
Intervention type(s): Dietary Supplement; Behavioral; Other
Intervention description(s): Food supplementation and nutrition education for three months; Nutrition education for children for three months; No Nutrition Education
Other intervention name(s): PUSHTI PACKET; PUSHTI PACKET
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Crossover Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Supportive Care
Keywords: nutrition; education; supplementation