Healthy Growing Children

This week I held a Growth Monitoring and Promotion session. I was pleased that 22 out of 23 children came to be weighed and measured. And I was very happy that every single child had gained weight since the previous month! I was a little worried about the boy who had pneumonia. I was afraid he might have lost weight, but I was proved wrong! It is such a pleasure to see every child doing well!

A few of the mothers are still breastfeeding their babies, so I reviewed the proper way to breastfeed. Although they know how to do this, it is still good to show them again and again so that they will remember and also so they can teach the other women in the community. I also took the opportunity to show the mothers how to make oral rehydration solution at home. We have a limited free supply of ORS now. So whenever I go for a home visit, I tell the mothers that they should have at least two or three ORS packets on hand in case their child gets diarrhea. It’s also very simple and easy to make. All you need to do is to take a half litre of clean water, a handful of molasses and three pinches of salt, then mix all these ingredients well. That’s it! It is then ready for a sick child to drink.