Mysuru: India is surely a land which has classic blind beliefs and one of the blind beliefs and misconceptions is pushing mothers and new born babies into malnutrition.
What more, pregnant women in the rural areas in the state reportedly refuse to consume the very important iron tablets during pregnancy due to a misconception that the child born will be ‘dark’ complexioned due to the tablets.
Speaking about the same after inaugurating three-day skill building training workshop for health workers including Asha and Anganvadi workers, organized by Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement (Graam), a unit of Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, K Radha, Deputy Director, Women and Child Welfare Department said that this in itself is posing a huge challenge to doctors and field level works in the rural pockets of the state.
“The health workers should create awareness among people especially pregnant women and make sure that they have nutrition food including iron tablet prescribed by doctors. Government has come out with various welfare schemes for betterment of pregnant women and new born baby but it seems it’s not reaching the deserving people. In villages if we give nutritious food to pregnant women, it is being shared among family members including mother, father, husband and other members in the family due to which not only the mother but also new born baby suffers from malnutrition,” she said.
Basavaraju, the Executive Director of GRAAM who also spoke on the occasion said that the individual behavior being influenced by his/ her belief and practices that are strongly rooted in our society is a common scene. He explained about the vicious circle of malnutrition which will have its long term impact on educational performance of children.
GRAAM with the help of UNICEF has taken up this challenge, and try to improve the knowledge, attitude and practice of people and through this it aims to reduce malnutrition from the selected regions. In this regard, GRAAM is organizing this program for ASHA and Anganwadi workers to enable them to emerge as a “change makers”.
The three day program is aimed to build capacity of around 30 ASHAs and 10 Anganwadi workers from 10 villages of Nanjangudu Taluk where this project is being implemented. The training program would focus on communication and interpersonal skills, Deeper understanding of five focus areas of the project, Ante Natal Care (ANC), Post Natal Care (PNC), New Born Care and Organizing various events at village level in an integrated manner. In Mysuru district the number of malnourished children has come down to 305 which was nearly 700 a year back.
