Health Department to monitor baby’s growth along with parents

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, September 14

Is your newborn baby eating properly or not? Is he/she getting enough nutritious food? Is the physical and mental development of the baby according to her age? All these things will now be monitored by the Health Department along with the parents.

The department is going to launch a new programme — Home Based Young Child Care (HBYC). Under it, planning has been done to give extra attention to check what newborn babies eat till they turn 15 months old and to monitor the pace of their physical and mental development. ANMs, ASHA workers and ASHA facilitators were being trained for this at the Community Health Centre at Shahkot.

The five-day training programme of the first batch ended on Monday. The programme aims to reduce cases of malnutrition and underdevelopment in the first 15 months of the child.

Senior Medical Officer Dr AS Duggal said from the process of conception to the birth of the child and then the first 1,000 days of the mental and physical development were very important. Earlier, after the birth of the child, the ANM and ASHA workers used to visit the newborn’s house in the first 42 days for seven times to examine the child.

Now, under the new programme, the number of visits has increased to 12. After the birth of the child, health workers will pay a visit on the 1st, 3rd, 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th, 42nd day and then every three months till the baby turns 15 months old.

Dr Duggal further said special monitoring would be done to check various stages of physical and mental development of the child. For example, in the third month, it would be ensured that the child was fully breastfed.

Besides, instructions would be given to protect the newborn from diseases like diarrhoea and pneumonia. Similarly, during the visits that will continue for six months, parents would be asked to give complementary food along with mother’s milk to the newborn baby. In the ninth and 12 month, it would be seen whether the weight and height of the child is equal to normal children. Is the child walking properly? The parents will be informed about the activities to be undertaken by the child at this age.

HBYC programme

The department is going to launch a new programme — Home-based Young Child Care (HBYC). Under it, planning has been done to pay extra attention to check what newborn babies eat till they turn 15 months old and to monitor the pace of their physical and mental development. ANMs, ASHA workers and ASHA facilitators were being trained for this at the Community Health Centre at Shahkot.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.