Topic

Nutritional Follow-up

Nutritional Follow-up is an action that aims to assess the nutritional status of children, every three months, on the Celebration of Life.

For this, it has a community team that has been previously trained to:

  • Weigh children, using a scale with proven quality, properly adjusted, and by taking off as many clothes as possible from babies and children so that the weight shown by the scale is the actual weight of the child or baby.
  • Measure the height of children using the stadiometer, making sure to measure children up to two years of age lying down and those over two years of age standing.

Both the members of this team and the other leaders can include the measurement data in the Home Visit and Nutrition Application, which will make the calculations and show the result of the child's nutritional status and the guidelines e-card that will be shared and discussed between the leader and the child's mother or guardian.

Measurement card

Each child has a measurement card on which registration data, weight and height/length at birth, date, and measurements taken on the day are recorded. It must be filled in by the leaders in a legible way to facilitate the understanding of the one who will enter the data in the Visit App. This card must remain in the community. See an example of the measurement card:

e-Cards

The e-Cards provide the information that will be used by leaders in advising families. They consider the child's age and, for children younger than 6 months, cross-reference the nutritional status data with the answers on breastfeeding or feeding collected at the last home visit. Thus, the guidelines become very individualized and have more quality.

The e-cards are available for sharing in the app at the "Nutritional Follow-up" button in the child's menu. To share, just click on the share button in the upper right corner of the screen and choose which way you want to send it (email, WhatsApp, Bluetooth, among others). With this share, the family will receive:

  • The specific e-card of the current nutritional status;
  • The e-card with general guidelines according to the child's age;
  • BMI (body mass index) chart by age;
  • The weight and height data from the child's last three measurements.

The result of the nutritional follow-up should be shared and discussed immediately with the child's parents or guardians. Thus, they go back home knowing what guidelines they should follow to improve the nutritional status of their son or daughter.

Leader, pay attention to the red and orange e-Cards. These are situations that deserve more time and attention when talking to parents. These are the cases of malnourished children who do not gain or lose weight and overweight and obese children who continue to gain weight.

Before advising parents with the malnutrition and obesity e-Cards, try to look at the child in question. If in doubt, check the data on the measurement card, and if the doubt persists, ask the team to retake the measurements to ensure a correct result.

This guidance must be carried out individually, not for several families at the same time. This avoids embarrassment.

After the celebration of life, follow-up continues during home visits, with the support of information from the Home Visit and Nutrition application.

 

  Inclusion of Health Service measures

What’s new is that, in addition to the assessment made by the Pastoral Care for Children in the Life Celebration, the leader has the autonomy to include the weight and height measurements that were taken at the hospital and health service, and which are normally recorded in the Child's Notebook or Card. This can be done during the home visit.

More and more follow-up families will have the guarantee of quality nutritional follow-up that can make a difference in the lives of many children.

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