By Sarah Phiri

Mzimba, April 15, Mana: Nutritionist for Mzimba District Health Office (DHO), Elizabeth Mkandawire has advised members of the District Nutrition Coordinating Committee (DNCC) in Mzimba to consider propagating messages of the importance of complementary feeding to Under Five children to avoid malnutrition in children.

Mkandawire made the plea in Mzimba on Tuesday during a two days’ orientation on Complementary Feeding Modules to DNCC organized by Feed the Children under Child Focused Community Development Program.

She emphasized the need for parents and caregivers to give nutritious complementary food in addition to breast milk as this prevents malnutrition in the babies.

“There are so many detrimental effects that come as a result of malnutrition such as stunted growth, weakened immune system and developmental delays. At the age of 6-23 months such effects can be easily avoided if the proper nutritious meals are given to the babies,” she said.

She stressed the need for parents to adopt ways of feeding babies’ food that can be mashed such as meat, fish, and vegetables.

“In communities, parents give babies under two years starch with broth only while grown-ups eat the relish. Some nutrients do not dissolve with water so the broth does not give the required nutrients found in the relish. Therefore, we are asking them to be mashing the relish so that the baby can start benefiting from the nutrients,” said Mkandawire.

Mkandawire also thanked Feed the Children for the initiative that once adopted it will help in cost avoidance to the hospitals.

“Treating malnutrition related effects is very expensive, as DHO we appreciate Feed the Children and other partners that are assisting government to ensure that the district should be malnutrition free as this saves money and resources that can be channelled to other things at our facilities,” she said.

Acting Principal HIV/Aids and Nutrition Officer for Mmbelwa District Council, Gift Simkonda hailed the training saying it came at the right time as the district strives to scale up effort to eliminate stunted growth, wasting and underweight in Children.

“Stunted growth in children stands at 36.9 in Mzimba, wasting is at 3.6 while underweight is at 6.9. So as players in nutrition we should work harder to ensure we completely do away with these for the healthy if our children in communities”, said Simkonda.

He appealed to all organisations working in nutrition to scale up interventions aimed at reversing stunted growth by engaging communities on the importance of normal breastfeeding and complementary feeding which he said are crucial for the growth of children.

Child Focused Community Development Program funded by Feed The Children is targeting 5000 households in Traditional Authority Mzikubola in Mzimba district.