Nutrition and Parenting Programs

This chapter discusses how to promote ECD through the combination of nutrition and parenting interventions. Malnutrition and over nutrition are major issues worldwide depending on the context of the where the child is growing up, but both have impacts on cognitive development. Postnatal interventions with macronutrient supplementation or multiple micronutrients supplementations are more effective than prenatal interventions. Children who are growing well are more likely to be physically active and to be curious about their environment; nutrients also support cognitive development. Parents must interact with their children to promote stimulation and learning development. There are advantages in combining nutrition and parenting interventions, which include their common window of opportunity in the first thousand days of life, the common delivery agent through the health delivery worker, etc. It is important to be able to communicate responsively during the feeding period, and stimulation provides an ideal context for guiding a family about what it means to be responsively caregiving. There are challenges that arise in combing parenting and nutrition interventions, including avoiding burdening a particular health service or a particular intervention program, and not overwhelming the parent. There are many examples of successful programs that deliver competency-based training.

This video is licensed under the CC BY-NC-SA license.