Thane district sees drop in number of malnourished children

Thane, Dec 11 (PTI) The number of malnourished children in Maharashtra's Thane district has significantly come down following a three-pronged approach focused on counselling of parents, training and direct feeding programmes, authorities said on Wednesday.
    At the end of September 2024, the district had 88 severely malnourished (SAM) children and 1,023 moderately malnourished (MAM) children.
    By November-end, the numbers reduced to 22 SAM and 961 MAM, an official release by the Zilla Parishad said.
    The guidance programme, led by the Zilla Parishad in collaboration with the Department of Women and Child Development, reaches 83,427 children across 1,647 anganwadis, it said.
    The efforts include counselling of parents, organising their meetings, and ensuring delivery of nutritious food during feeding times. The programme also integrates training to prepare tasty and healthy meals for children, the release said.

    The district, in collaboration with the IIT Bombay and voluntary organisations like the Sneha Foundation and Annada Foundation, has adopted various strategies, such as parent training videos, to improve child nutrition, it said.


    Nutritional kits are distributed to pregnant and lactating mothers and children after six months of age to combat early stages of malnutrition, the release added.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)