The nutrition committee of the City of Caloocan organized a culminating activity that marked the graduation of 424 pregnant beneficiaries from the National Nutrition Council’s Tutok Kainan Dietary Supplementation Program (TK-DSP) in Caloocan City on March 17 and 18, 2022.

Tutok Kainan DSP started on December 9, 2021 until March 18, 2022 in Caloocan City. The program provided daily food supplementation to pregnant beneficiaries for 90 days which consist of enhanced nutribun in the 1st month, hot meals in the 2nd month, and nutribun + LNS-SQ in the 3rd month. Hot meals consist of one (1) viand, iron-fortified rice, and banana.

Before the start of the culminating event, pregnant beneficiaries were weighed by Barangay Nutrition Scholars (BNSs) and Nutritionist-Dietitians (NDs) in their respective cluster areas to determine their nutritional status on the last day of feeding (Day 90). Beneficiaries are weighed every 30 days since the start of the dietary supplementation to monitor their nutritional status.

A short lecture was also conducted by the NDs of each cluster to emphasize the importance of proper nutrition through the improvement of the quality and quantity of food consumed to fight malnutrition in the first 1000 days of life (F1KD). Highlighted also was the importance of attending prenatal checkups, provision of vitamins, and other critical interventions in the F1KD for the pregnant mother.

During the activity, some of the BNSs shared their practices on how they prepared and distributed the commodities to the beneficiaries. Also, pregnant beneficiaries were given the chance to share some of their good experiences during the dietary supplementation.

At the end of the program, each beneficiary was provided with a certificate of participation by the nutrition committee. The NDs also reminded the pregnant beneficiaries to use their learnings from TK-DSP to maintain their good health and give birth to healthy babies.

Written by: PNFP Diana Jean A. Umali and NPC Milagros Elisa V. Federizo