“She eats well now”
Improving the nutrition of children in Gabú, Guinea-Bissau
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Gabú, Guinea-Bissau, 17 June 2021 – Djiba Seidi had not gained weight since her last weigh in at the nutritional recovery centre (CRN), in Gabú’s central hospital. But still, at 8.5 kilograms, Djiba was the healthiest she had ever been, according to her mother Aissato Baldé, aged 25, “we just finished her check-up, and the doctors say she is healthy.”
“My daughter was very small when we first got here. We came because she used to get sick often. She always ran high temperatures,” Aissato continued as Djiba cooed in affirmation. She and Djiba had been at the nutrition centre only a year before and remained there for four weeks. Djiba had initially struggled to adjust to the new environment and new foods being introduced to her. Like many of the infants that frequent the CRN, Djiba was not used to eating porridge and protested it forcefully. She preferred rice and meat like the older children and adults around her.
Sister Florinda Costa e Sá, who supervises the programme implemented by Caritas and facilitated by UNICEF, confirmed that most of infants struggle with their mothers during feeding, often crying and rejecting the porridge given to them. “It’s always very difficult at the beginning,” sister Florinda said, “but once they are used to it, it’s the only thing they want to eat.” As she spoke, sister Florinda walked around the busy centre that resonated with both cries and laughter, correcting mothers’ feeding techniques to make it an easier experience for them and their children. She also celebrated with them as the infants slowly became accustomed to the porridge, many of whom babbled in complaint when their breakfast was interrupted.
Djiba is just the same, Aissato teased, “now the porridge is all she wants to eat. She chooses it over rice.” So, despite not having gained any weight since her last check-in, there is hope that Djiba will recover fully from her malnutrition, “she eats well now, and she has been gaining weight. You can tell that she is better now than she used to be.”
Child and infant malnutrition are issues of great concern for UNICEF, and it has consequences for all sectors of development. It often results in stunting, where children are at risk of not achieving their full height or cognitive potential. It can also result in wasting that causes weakened immunity and increases the risk of death. Gabú is one of the regions of Guinea-Bissau with the highest rates of stunting and under-five mortality, with more than a third of those deaths being attributed to malnutrition.
Malnutrition is believed to be the biggest cause for child mortality because it compromises their immune systems. Guinea-Bissau has a high prevalence of malnutrition, attributable to the recurrent threat of food insecurity for part of the population – up to 20% of rural households were found to be food insecure in the World Food Programme (WFP) Food Security Monitoring Survey, and less than 17% of children between 6 and 23 months receiving the minimum requirement for food diversity.
To improve the nutritional health of children in the country, UNICEF has been working tirelessly to advocate for exclusive breastfeeding for infants younger than 6 months old and has worked in collaboration with Caritas to help in the diversification of children’s daily diet when complementary foods are introduced. Despite steady improvements across the country, Gabú remains a challenging region, with only 33% of mothers breastfeeding exclusively. In terms of food diversity, only one in twelve children in Guinea-Bissau consumes diverse meals. The vast majority of Bissau-Guinean children’s diets are composed of mostly rice with little else to supplement it. Foods that would help in diversifying children’s diets and increasing nutrition, like vegetables, fruits, and meat, are often produced for sale rather than consumption.
At the nutritional recovery centre, not only are children provided with foods that will help to supplement their diets, but mothers are also actively taught how to prepare the best foods for their children with local, non-expensive products so that, once their time at the centre ended, infants would not fall back into malnutrition. “They taught me how to make porridge while I was here so that my daughter can be strong” Aissato confirms. Facilitators in the centre teach mothers also about the importance of keeping their children’s environments and food clean, to avoid illness.
The nutritional recovery centre has slowly been able to open up since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and according to sister Florinda, they try their best to adhere to sanitary measures. In these trying times, it is especially important to make sure that children and their mother are being well fed and taken care of so that they are strong enough to combat illnesses. Every week Aissato goes to the centre so that Djiba can be monitored and be provided with cornmeal, sometimes the children even get chocolate. But more than that, the CRN has become a place for community; as well as the monitoring visits that they attend, mothers and their children – some of whom are as old as eight year, and who still liked to eat porridge every once in a while! – continue to frequent the centre, to support the team, given that they themselves have built up experience in making nutritional foods, and to support the mothers and children who are still working their way back to health.
The project targeted five countries in the West Africa region where there were high rates of stunting including Guinea-Bissau. With the support of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), that represented 80% of UNICEF Guinea-Bissau's nutrition budget, UNICEF designed and implemented an action plan from 2018 to March 2021 to support the Bissau-Guinean government’s efforts to reduce malnutrition and improve child survival.
