Nutrition

The JiVitA Project  in Bangladesh will examine the effects of weekly maternal vitamin A supplementation during pregnancy along with newborn vitamin A supplementation  on cognitive development of children at 8 years of age. The findings will help to elucidate the preventable effects of micronutrient deficiencies during critical early stages of neurobehavioral development on cognition of children at ages when they usually start school.

Crowdfunding and social networks as a novel mechanism to sustainably promote physical growth and positive psychosocial and neuro-developmental outcomes in severely stunted Guatemalan children

Eight-eight million young children worldwide are estimated to dropout before completing primary school education resulting in serious repercussions for human capital formation. Early Childhood Development interventions that prepare children for school may lead to reduction in early dropout.

In Peru, 2 out of 10 children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, negatively impacting their growth and development in later life. Timely diagnosis through nutritional status screening and monitoring are paramount; however, they are not routinely done and are subject to measurement errors. A novel body measurement data capture system, based on the use of mobile technologies and image processing, will allow on-site capture of body images of children for automated nutritional status assessment.

In Cambodia, six in 10 women are anemic due to iron deficiency in their diets, causing premature labour, hemorrhaging during childbirth and the impaired brain development of their babies. Usually obtained through red meat or other iron-rich foods, a small chunk of iron added to water in the cooking pot can release a life-saving iron supplement. But attempts to persuade mothers to do so were unsuccessful.

This project fostering integrated rice–duck farming in Nepal will raise incomes through higher productivity and lower fertilizer costs, along with other farm input costs, while reducing malnutrition by providing a continuous supply of protein and vitamin-enriched food.  About half of Nepalese children under five years are malnourished (45% are underweight, 43% have stunted growth) and the problem is most severe among smallholder farm families. For more information visit www.practicalaction.org"