Early years
The first three years of a child’s life are critical from the perspective of child health and development. UNICEF Turkmenistan is fully committed to working with the government to ensure that every child has the best possible start – a safe, registered birth, proper nutrition and access to crucial vaccinations. Every year in “A decade ago convincing parents in Turkmenistan about the importance of immunization was quite a challenge for doctors,” explains Tamara Sultanova, a paediatrician with over 20 years experience working in one of the country’s northern provinces. But today almost every child is immunized against six vaccine preventable diseases mostly before its first birthday. As a result, immunization represents a public health success story: Linked to immunization is the joint government and UNICEF campaign to encourage exclusive breastfeeding, a safe, healthy and economical practice that only a few years ago was employed by less than 49 percent of Turkmen women. But that decline is being halted in many parts of the country, say health workers, who are now witnessing a renewed awareness of its benefits, including “first milk.” “Exclusive breastfeeding is the first ‘vaccine’ the child gets from the rich colostrum in the mother’s milk,” says Rita Yelisaeva, a chief paediatrician in one of The government is also working with UNICEF to further reduce infant and child mortality by expanding its programme in each of the country’s five provinces or velayats to combat childhood illnesses. Acute respiratory infections and diarrhoeal diseases remain the leading causes of infant and childhood mortality in the country.
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