Feasible Means to Address Moderately Malnourished Children Within BINP Communities

The Bangladesh Integrated Nutrition Project (BINP) of the Government of Bangladesh has started showing reduction in malnutrition of women and children under two years of age in last 3 years of it's activities. That was a demonstration study to test the efficacy of the approach on a relatively small number of children with intensive intervention. A study will be therefore conducted in 4 division of BINP thanas of Bangladesh over an 18-month period. Moderately malnourished children will be in management intervention and mildly malnourished and well-nourished infants will be in preventive intervention group. For management intervention, a total of 750 moderately malnourished will be randomized to receive either intensive nutrition education or less intensive education. For preventive purpose, 380 mildly malnourished children of 6 months to 2 years of age and 240 well nourished infants of 6 to 9 months of age will receive either less intensive education or no education. Infants between 6 to 9 month ages will be brought under less INE to ensure their complementary feeding practice. Care givers of one group of mildly malnourished children and one group of 6-9 month old infants will not receive any education to serve as controls. Focus group discussion will be held before the educational intervention to identify the perception of the mother, her husband and female decision maker of her family on child nutrition, caring practice and common practice of health care. BCC materials will be developed after FGD and that will be used during nutrition education. Mothers of the first intervention group will receive intensive nutrition education for child feeding twice weekly for first three months, which will be then reinforced once in a week for the last three months of intervention. The less intensive intervention group will receive nutrition education twice a week for the first month then once a week for two months and then twice monthly for the last three months of intervention.