The first 1,000 days of life – from conception to the second birthday of a child -- is a unique period of opportunity

Despite significant progress on key indicators of child and maternal health, maternal and child mortality rate is still high in Bangladesh. Besides, proper physical and mental growth of children is also affected in the rural communities where the rate of stunting and wasting among the children is high. Among others, the 1000 days of intensive care intervention addresses the gap of doorstep MNCH services in Bangladesh. The first 1,000 days of life – from conception to the second birthday of a child -- is a unique period of opportunity when the foundations of optimum health, growth and neurodevelopment across the lifespan are established. The right nutrition during this 1,000 days window has a profound impact on a child's ability to grow, learn and thrive. It has a lasting effect on a nation's health and prosperity. The impact of poor nutrition early in life has lasting effects that can transcend generations. Activities related to the first 1000 days of life were implemented under an EU-funded project titled ‘Food Security 2012 Bangladesh-Ujjibito’, implemented by PKSF <www.pksf-bd.org>. With an aim to ensure health care services, especially during the 1000 critical days starting from the early days of pregnancy, the project introduced doorstep health care services for pregnant women and lactating mothers. The initiative leveraged the existing groups to identify beneficiaries. Key features of the initiative include ensuring doorstep health care service, monitoring of key health indicators, and facilitate access to the existing health care service providers.

An independent evaluation suggests that the intervention on 1000 days intensive care have a clear and demonstrated impact on improving the nutrition of pregnant and lactating mothers, reducing the risk of childbirth, improving diet and feeding practices, improving the rate of exclusive breastfeeding, reducing stunting, and wasting amongst the children under five. The health workers address the accessibility issue which restricts pregnant women and lactating mothers from ultra-poor households from accessing MNCH services provided by the public or the private sector. The health workers also provide referrals to community clinics. Comparative analysis shows that mothers who previously had a difficult pregnancy or malnourished child were successfully able to address their challenges with regards to pregnancy, childbirth, and nutrition. Despite its effectiveness, the project faced challenges in registering pregnant mothers in the first trimester due to prevailing social norms which restrict the women from disclosing their pregnancy. The impacts on diet practices in certain cases were affected due to the income depression of the household.

The attached document portrayed some facts related to that intervention. It can be accessed from PKSF’s website at https://lnkd.in/gm5Ji3X

#health #pregnancy #child nutrition