Saving a baby’s life through nutrition services amid conflict

Hayatu was not breastfeed because her mother, Nafisa, got sick immediately after giving birth and had difficulty breastfeeding. That’s when the health workers intervened and provided breastfeeding support to Nafisa, Hayatu’s mother. But the re-lactation also failed. An additional counselling was provided to both parents, Nafisa and Hamza, on infant and young child feeding practices with the option of formula feeding.

Due to complete blockage of market that resulted from the Northern Ethiopia conflict that spilling over in Amhara region, the family was not able to buy formula milk even though they were able to afford it. As a result, Hayatu was not getting any milk since the occurrence of conflict in Habru and became very sick. Her parents Nefisa and Hamza were so worried as they also couldn’t take Hayatu to the clinic as health services were interrupted in the area for over five months.

By the time the health services were restored, Hayatu already had visible signs of generalized body oedema due to the malnutrition. The health workers assessed and confirmed that Hayatu was malnourished, and they advised the parents to take him to Dessie Comprehensive Referral Hospital for in-patient management of acute malnutrition.

The next morning, Nafisa and Hamza took Hayatu to the Hospital as per the recommendations where nurse and focal person for the stabilization centre, Matiyas, rechecked the Hayatu and informed them that he has Severe Acute Malnutrition with generalized oedema and needs to be admitted for treatment. Coincidentally, the stabilization centre in Dessie just resumed services after two-month interruption of service.

Hayatu’s parents said that their child was very weak and was not able to feed when he was admitted in the Nutrition treatment centre.

With consistent follow up and good support from the hospital’s health workers, he was able to drink the therapeutic milk after two days of feeding by the tube. Hayatu was treated with therapeutic milk and other medicines in the stabilization centre for 7 days. He was then transferred back to the village Health Post where he continued with treatment and follow-up to receive the weekly ration of Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF).

This was made possible through funding received from the Government Canada to UNICEF as part of the support to Ethiopia through the Humanitarian Appeal for Children (HAC) which is a multisectoral funding to support all sectors including emergency nutrition programming throughout the country. This funding was used to support prevention and treatment of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) cases, just like Hayatu through procurement of essential life-saving nutrition commodity, ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) for treatment of SAM without medical complications in Outpatient Therapeutic Programme (OTP) sites in primary health centers.

Hamza and Nefisa are now very happy that their son Hayatu was able to recover from severe acute malnutrition through the coordinated efforts of health workers, the hospital staff, UNICEF and the Government of Canada.

“I am so happy that my son has finally recovered by drinking milk and peanut food. Thanks to the hospital health workers,” said Hayatu’s mother.