Principal of Government Ayurvedic College Indu Mishra (left) delivers a lecture at the workshop on nutrition organised on the institution premises on Thursday. Picture by Jai Prakash

Patna, Sept. 1: The high mortality rate among mothers and infants in India, which is largely because of malnourishment, calls for proper awareness. A daylong workshop on nutrition organised by Community Food and Extension Unit, Patna (run by the ministry of women and child development), deliberated on the topic today at Government Ayurvedic College to promote National Nutrition Week (September 1-7).

Several dignitaries, including M.P. Jain, a trainer at Breast Feeding Promotional Network of India (a non-government organisation), Indu Mishra, the principal of Government Ayurvedic College, lecturers Arvind Chaurasia, Amrendra Kumar Singh, Dineshwar Prasad and others took part in the workshop.

Discussions ranged from how proper nutrition from childhood helps build immunity in the newborn to how malnutrition in the lactating mother and her child leads to diseases like anaemia.

“Malnourishment occurs due to lack of basic knowledge about healthy food. Around one crore children between zero and five die every year globally. In India, 25 lakh children in the same age group die every year and 2.5 lakh die within the first hour of their birth. Among the 25 lakh children, around 10 lakh succumb to diarrhoea and pneumonia. Around 45 per cent of the deaths in this age group result from malnutrition,” said Jain.

“Proper nutritional diet is necessary not only for the infant but also for the lactating mother. While the best diet for an infant is breast milk, the mother should also take a healthy diet when the child is dependent on her milk. Breast-feeding is said to be the first vaccination of a newborn against diseases. Children who are not breastfed are vulnerable to diseases. The mother’s condensed and sticky yellowish milk, which comes after two days of the delivery, is best suited for the baby. It is highly nutritional,” added Jain.

He said while a woman requires 1,800 to 2,800 calories, a pregnant woman needs 350 calories extra. “A lactating mother needs around 550 calories extra than a normal woman in order to satiate the nutritional requirements of her child and herself,” he said.

Many women feed milk to the child through bottle because they feel the baby does not consume milk properly. “It is not a good practice. Sometimes, the mother doesn’t get to know whether the child has been well fed or not. If a child between 0-6 months urinates six times a day or gains 0.5kg every 15 days of his or her birth, it means he or she has been properly breastfed,” Jain added.