‘Giving colostrum to newborn not commonly practised'

January 11, 2012 03:54 am | Updated November 17, 2021 03:36 am IST - NEW DELHI

The Hunger and Malnutrition (HUNGaMA) report by the Naandi Foundation, released here by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday, says that giving colostrum to the newborn and exclusive breastfeeding for first 6 months of a child's life are not commonly practised.

“About 51 per cent of the mothers did not give colostrum to the newborn soon after birth and 58 per cent mothers fed water to their infants before six months,” notes the survey.

It emphasises need to provide better services through anganwadi centres. While a total of 96 per cent of villages had their own anganwadi centres, only 61 per cent operate in pucca buildings.

“The anganwadi services accessed by the largest proportion of mothers [86 per cent] is immunisation; 61 per cent of anganwadi centres had dried rations available and 50 per cent provided food on the day of survey; only 19 per cent of mothers reported that the anganwadi centre provides nutrition counselling to parents,” it says.

Dr. Singh said the country had not succeeded in reducing malnutrition levels fast enough. “Though the Integrated Child Development Scheme continues to be our most important tool to fight malnutrition, we can no longer rely solely on it.”

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.