San Jose, Negros Oriental – Women plays a vital role in every child’s nutrition. Mother’s nutritional status before pregnancy up to child’s second birthday and her knowledge to nutrition greatly affects child’s growth and development.  One of the keys that could prevent malnutrition is to ensure that mothers receive healthy diets and adequate services especially during the 1^st 1000 days in which they are nutritionally vulnerable at most.

Women needs to consume nutritious diet during pre-conception to prepare and ensure adequate reserves for pregnancy. Energy and nutrient requirements significantly rise during pregnancy, thus, meeting the nutritional needs of women are essential and fundamental for their health and child in the womb throughout early childhood.

On the other hand, women who have poor nutritional status may lead to maternal death or child’s decrease chance to survive, grow, and develop.

In this regard, the National Nutrition Council VII highly recommends to Local Government Units to pour attention and invest in maternal nutrition to address chronic and acute malnutrition of children. The following are nutrition programs that supports maternal nutrition:

Micronutrient supplementation – ensure that pregnant and lactating mothers have access to essential micronutrients especially iron and folic acid. Pregnant women should consume 180 tablets of iron with folic acid supplementation for the entire pregnancy period to prevent iron-deficiency anemia.

Dietary supplementation – Addressing stunting during the first 1,000 days period will require the provision of nutrition assistance in the form of dietary supplementation aimed at filling in the nutritional deficits or the gaps in food intake particularly of nutritionally-at-risk pregnant women belonging to food insecure households.  Dietary supplementation is defined as the “provision of additional food to a target group for a specified calorie and protein level of supplementation and for a duration of no less than 90 days.

Nutrition Education – limited knowledge to nutrition significantly contributes to negative nutrition outcomes of children. Conducting mothers’ classes can be used to promote awareness of the 1^st 1000 days of life. Healthy diet, proper feeding practices, meal preparation, etc. are best to be discussed to provide additional knowledge to mothers and encourage behavior change. // ND II Shaira Vita A. Calumpang, RND