A vital cog in Bongaigaon’s response to malnutrition

Context: Project Sampoorna’s success in reducing child malnutrition is a model that can be easily implemented anywhere.

India’s health and nutrition problem

• Anaemia being a major determinant of maternal and child health: Highest risk factor for high risk pregnancy is anaemia. 
• Vicious cycle of malnourished child growing into an unhealthy adolescent, and then further into an anaemic pregnant young woman giving birth to an asphyxiated low birth weight baby. 
• Developmental delays due to vicious cycle of malnourishment.
• Unhealthy society: As undernourished  child struggles further for nutrition and appropriate care while the world around her barely makes ends meet.
• Hindrance of patriarchy: Eg. Girl children facing intersectional discrimination in dietary practices at home.
• Ineffectiveness of District Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres, or NRCs: NRCs have up to 20 beds and a monthly intake of 200 SAM children is not practical. 
• Parents have to forgo their daily wages (which to an extent is compensated by the Government) and abandon their farmlands for 10 days while admitting their child to NRCs.
• Treated child could  slip back to a SAM state after being discharged and if not cared for.

Policy response

• Prime Minister had identified health and nutrition as priority areas and reiterated the need for a ‘Kuposhan mukt Bharat’ (Malnutrition Free India).
• Launch of  Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment - POSHAN Abhiyaan (National Nutrition Mission).
• Poshan Maah (Nutrition Month) in September 2020.
• Project Saubhagya was designed to reduce the maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate of Bongaigaon district of Assam.

• Target mothers of SAM/MAM children and children’s nutrition.
• Concept of buddy mothers: Identified mother of a healthy child of the same Anganwadi Centre (AWC) and paired her with the target mother.
  • ‘Buddy Mothers’ were usually neighbours and shared similar socio-economic backgrounds. 
  • Pairs were given diet charts to indicate the daily food intake of their children.
  • Discussions related to local nutrional practices and diet charts happens on every Tuesdays. 
• Financial empowerment of mothers: Through enrolment in Self Help Groups (SHGs) under National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM).
• Monitoring mechanism: Children who had not improved were checked and treated by doctors under the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK).
• Institutional support : UNICEF, IIT Guwahati, Tezpur University and the Social Welfare Department lent their support in periodic course correction.

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