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The keystone project of our organization is the employment of our Health Promoters (HPs), who are local women originally from the low-income communities they serve. The HPs are trained and educated by dieticians, sociologists and physiotherapists, legal advisors in awareness about society and social interactions, behavior and interpersonal relationships, awareness amongst Basti people for their rights, counseling residents to improve their physical health and lives .There is a written test every month on both nutrition and sociology in order for the HPs to retain and update their knowledge.
NIPP PROGRAMME
Nutrition Improvement Priority Program
NIPP stands for nutrition improvement priority program started in 2015. The weight and height of the child reflects the health status of the child under 5 years of age. In a population of 15,000 approximately we have around 1,625 children under five years of age. In this generally 11% to 12% kids are in the red zone category, which means the weight of a child is more than 3Kg underweight for that particular age. Children who are more than 4kg underweight come under a high priority zone. DIR-India feeds children in high priority zones of poor socioeconomic status families who cannot afford high protein diets. In this program we include a few pregnant mothers with weak health status due to domestic violence, drug addiction, alcoholism and poor socioeconomic status. Our Dietitians plan a weekly menu consisting of a high protein diet, which is fed to children and mothers under direct supervision. In NIPP the meal provided, takes care of iron deficiency, protein deficiency and calorie deficiency malnutrition and is enriched in various micronutrients that will supplement the overall health of a child.
We included approximately 60 malnourished, economically weak children every month in the NIPP. Also the iron syrup, deworming tablet and vitamin A capsule were given to malnourished children.
These children are fed low-cost, high-calorie, high-protein lunches in the DIR office under direct supervision.
A nutritionist writes weekly menus consisting of milk, boiled eggs, soybean protein, paneer, nuts, bananas, cracked wheat grains etc. especially those food groups that are not afforded by a family of the child. Each month, DIR Dietitians demonstrates to the HPs a recipe for a nutritious meal based on the theme “LOW-COST HIGH-CALORIE HIGH PROTEIN DIET” that can be made with ingredients which are easily accessible to slum women, which costs no more than 2 rupees (US 5 cents) per serving.
In turn, HPs give cooking classes in their assigned zones to teach the mothers. The program is very popular and many parents tell our cooks that their kids are enjoying the cooked food served in the DIR office. The mothers are shown the growth charts and explain the importance of height and weight of the child reflects the health status of the kid upto 5 years of age.
Nutrition is the focal point of health and wellbeing. In other words, it allows you to be strong, provides you with the energy to do the things you want to do, and makes you look and feel your best. Today, there is a wealth of nutrition information at our fingertips – from diet books to newspaper articles; everyone seems to have an opinion about what we should be eating. So in order to introduce our health promoters and slum women with a more innovative and healthy way of eating , every third Tuesday of the month, Nutritionists conduct a demonstration class for Health promoters and slum people on Low Cost High Calorie High Protein Diet.
DIR team scan pregnant undernourished women and do antenatal checkups like weight monitoring, Blood pressure check ups, checking of hospital cards so that we can ensure 100% hospital deliveries and to guide them about the medications prescribed by doctors because we have seen many cases where women does not know about how to take iron and calcium tablets and at what time it should be consumed, educates them about nutritional management in gestational diabetes and thyroid and what are the good food combinations in addition to this we educate them about food-drug interactions, and do nutritional counseling in a layman language so that the woman could deliver a healthy baby.
After delivery we guide the lactating mothers about postpartum care like continuous consumption of iron and calcium tablets as prescribed by doctors and also educates them about the post delivery nutritional management in gestational diabetes and thyroid, weight checkups of mother and her newborn, educates them about breastfeeding methods, healthy breastfeeding, importance of breastfeeding, we supremely focus on the nutritional management in anemia and malnourishment due to hb loss during the time of delivery and demonstrates the importance of healthy food by making and introducing the healthy and attractive recipes with food sources available at home.
Our counseling and monitoring starts with the scanning of undernourished pregnant women. We do weight monitoring and reports checking so that we could get an idea about the health status of a pregnant woman and in turn it will tell us about the health of a baby inside the womb and we then counsel the pregnant ladies about maintaining health and hygiene by good eating habits and incorporation of nutritious foods in diet.
After the baby is born we check the APGAR score of a newborn written on the hospital reports of a pregnant woman. In addition to this we check the birth weight of a child and then counsel the new mother about some healthy habits which she needs to maintain during the first six months of breastfeeding, checking of vaccination card of a newborn is one of the prime focus of ours so that the child would be able to get immuned from the preventable diseases, we also educate the mother about the importance of weaning after the six months of breastfeeding so that the growth of a child is maintained.
We are following a WHO growth chart for Indian children to assess their weight category which includes four zones i.e. high priority zone, red zone, yellow zone and green zone. Children who have ideal body weight come under the green zone, those who are 1-2kg underweight from the ideal body weight come under the yellow zone, children who are 3-4kg underweight from the IBW fall under the red zone and those who are severely malnourished fall under the high priority zone.
In order to maintain a healthy weight of a child and to combat protein-energy malnutrition, mothers are counseled about nutritious foods and recipes made from indigenous and home-available foods which are lost cost, high protein and high calorie.
Developing Indigenous Resources India (DIR-INDIA) is a Non-Profit and Charitable trust .
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