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- Category: Region 4b
A woman’s nutritional status not only influences her health, but also pregnancy outcomes and the health of her fetus-neonate. Nutrient needs during pregnancy and lactation stages are relatively higher than those who are not pregnant or lactating.
Pregnant women need additional 300 kcal during the 2nd and 3rd trimester to support fetal and placental growth. While lactating mothers need an additional 500 kcal to support breastmilk production.
A good diet takes planning. Pregnant and lactating mothers should make sure they eat a variety of foods from each food group. An easy guide to help them acquire healthy eating habits needed to attain optimum nutrition would be the Pinggang Pinoy for pregnant and lactating women.
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- Category: Region 4b
DOST-FNRI continuously develops food commodities that will aid hunger and malnutrition. One of their innovations is the reformulation of nutribun that was first introduced by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the 1970s.
Nutribun of USAID was designed as a “ready-to-eat complete meal” for public elementary school feeding programs to combat child undernutrition in the Philippines.
The DOST-FNRI’s reformulation of nutribun gave rise to the Enhanced Nutribun that contains more micronutrients such as iron and vitamin A and has a softer texture. Enhanced Nutribun comes in different variants: squash, carrot and yellow sweet potato.
Recently this year, the DOST-FNRI has launched new sweet potato variants of Enhanced Nutribun – the orange and purple sweet potato.
Read more: Orange and Purple Sweet Potato: DOST-FNRI’s New Variants of Enhanced Nutri-bun
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- Category: Region 4b
Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis and is a highly communicable disease passed on to another when the infected person coughs, sneezes, spits, or talks without covering their nose and mouth. It is also related to poverty, malnutrition, and poor immune function. People infected with TB bacteria in the lungs experience symptoms such as a bad cough that lasts 3 weeks or longer, pain in the chest, and coughing up blood. TB bacteria may also attack other organs of the body, like the kidney, spine, and brain that is generally characterized by fatigue, weight loss, loss of appetite, chills, fever, and sweating at night.
Worldwide, tuberculosis is one of the leading causes of death with nearly 4,000 people dying and 30,000 people getting infected daily as reported by the World Health Organization (WHO). In the Philippines, it has been projected that over 100,000 Filipinos may die of TB in the next five (5) years if disruption in regular TB services from consultation, testing, to treatment will not improve amidst the battle against COVID-19.
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- Category: Region 4b
San Vicente, Palawan Province – As part of the capacity building of health workers for Nutrition in Emergencies, Information Managemet Officer (IMO) Xylene Notario and Provincial Nutrition Action Officer (PNAO) Rachel Paladan conducted a crash course on Philippine Integrated Management on Acute Malnutrition (PIMAM) on 18 March 2022 in Brgy. Port Barton, San Vicente, Palawan.
The activity aimed to improve the skills and bring awareness to the health workers in dealing with the malnutrition problem in the province. It was also a strategy in response to the recent Typhoon Odette as San Vicente was one of the highly affected areas.
Read more: IMO for Palawan and Palawan PNAO conducts PIMAM Crash Course
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- Category: Region 4b
To address rate of stunting among 0 to 23 months old children through improved quality and quantity of food and nutrient intakes and utilization of Early Childhood Care and Development – First 1000 Days (ECCD-F1K)-related services in the province of Marinduque, the Tutok Kainan Dietary Supplementation Program (TKDSP) was introduced by the National Nutrition Council.
All municipal nutrition action officers of six (6) municipalities – Boac, Buenavista, Gasan, Mogpog, Santa Cruz, and Torrijos, Marinduque facilitated various social preparation activities for the upcoming implementation phase of the program.
Read more: Tutok Kainan News in Marinduque Province: January to February 2022
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- Category: Region 4b
Roxas, Palawan Province – The Provincial Nutrition Office of Palawan headed by Provincial Nutrition Action Officer (PNAO) Rachel Paladan and the Nutrition Team of Municipality of Roxas headed by Municipal Nutrition Action Officer (MNAO) Beberlita Dulay partnered with the Philippine Red Cross to provide nutrition-related services in the municipality on 7-11 March 2022 as part of response to Typhoon Odette.
The 5-day provision of nutrition services included feeding of children 6-59 months, moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) and severe acute malnutrition (SAM) active case finding, counseling of pregnant and lactating women, nutrition education classes, provision of micronutrient powder (MNP), and demonstration of proper hand-washing technique. These activities were conducted to address the possible increase in the malnutrition cases in children due to the Typhoon Odette last December 2021.
