One in two slum children malnourished in Pune

One in two children under five years of age from urban slums in Pune suffer from various grades of malnutrition, with poor nutrition and low immunisation being the primary reasons for this sorry state of affairs.

These are the results of a recent study carried out in Pimpri slums by the community medicine department of DY Patil Medical College.

Alarmed by the findings, the department has now started making efforts to combat malnutrition amongst children in nearby slums.

Dr Amitav Banerjee, senior professor at the department, said that ignorance among mothers regarding child feeding practices is a major cause of child malnutrition.

“During diarrhoea and other illnesses, they have a tendency to either under feed or starve the child which aggravates the problem. Combating child malnutrition involves a multi-pronged approach. During our interventions, we focus on involving mothers who have healthy babies to act as peer educators to other mothers,” he said.

Last week, the department organised two such programmes, i.e., Healthy Baby Competition and Recipe for Nutritious Diet for Children Competition in collaboration with Integrated Child Development Scheme in Bhosari and Pimpri slums.

“Seventeen anganwadis that were involved in the programme were visited by four teams of doctors and medical social workers. Nearly 850 children below 6 years of age were examined and given symptomatic treatment.

However, our focus was to teach the mothers about nutrition and hygienic practices. We also awarded mothers with healthy babies to inspire other mothers to take up the challenge,” said Dr Hetal Rathod.

During the event low-cost dietary recipes that are nutritious and culturally acceptable were shared with the mothers, she added.

“Mothers were taught about home care, oral rehydration fluids found in rice water and nimbu-paani that can be used during diarrhoea. We also taught mothers about vaccine-preventable diseases,” said Rathod. Doctors said that the study pointed out while under nourishment was a problem in young children, obesity was common among adults.

“The study highlighted the need to educate slum dwellers about dietary changes keeping their financial status in mind. Hence, we decided to take up this project as logically furthering the study and part of our community interventions,” said Banerjee.

The department plans to take up individual counselling sessions with mothers after identifying children with nutritional deficiencies and counselling based on family income, eating habits, sanitation, etc.