Undernourished Mothers Are More Prone To Have Premature Babies

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 28th Feb, 2017 ) : Undernourished mothers hold every chance to deliver premature babies who consequently are at a great to be malnourished with a high rate of death even in the first year of their lives, said senior pediatrician, Prof.

Dure Samin Akram. Talking to APP here on Tuesday she said solutions to ending this vicious cycle is not only to offer food subsidies to families under the poverty level and right choice of food for girls in general and feeding mothers in particular but also to ensure exclusive breast-feeding during the first six months of an infant's life.

"Once the baby assumes six months of age breast feeding must be continued together with supplementation with 'home food' in adequate quantities and frequency so as to ensure good nutrition for children," she said in reply to a question.

"It will also protect them against wasting and stunting," Dr. D.S.Akram said mentioning that all over the world as much as 53% of children below 5 years of age die directly or indirectly due to malnutrition.

The senior doctor agreed that there was equal need to improve the health status of women and mentioned that intelligent choice of food from the readily available options, that are also not necessarily expensive, can significantly help address the issue of under nourishment among most of the women in the country.

"The interventions I am talking about,in context of babies as well as their mothers, hold negligible cost to the family but may require diligent and empathetic counseling," she said. To another query, she said information and demonstration to mothers and their families is imperative to address the issue of malnutrition, which can only be done by health personnel at the community level (Lady Health Workers) as well as in hospitals at every opportunity available to counsel mothers.

"Training of Health Workers is essential for them to learn skills of effective counseling and knowledge and awareness of the correct messages to give to women with infants and young Children,� said Dr. D.S.Akram.