Teen moms targeted as Nutrition Week gets underway

Aug 03, 2016 News

Food Policy Director, Ms. Dinte Conway

It is a known fact that babies born to teenage mothers are more likely to have lower birth weights, and there is likely to be an increased risk of some congenital anomalies as well.
This state of affairs has been highlighted by Ms. Dinte Conway, Director of the Food Policy Division within the Ministry of Public Health.
According to Conway, the importance of nutrition during pregnancy for the health of both mother and child is well documented. As such, it is well known that nutritional needs are high in adolescents as the body grows and develops. As such, when a teenager becomes pregnant she needs all the help and support she can get.
Conway highlighted, therefore, that a survey on ‘Iron, Iodine and Vitamin A Status and Antibody Levels in Guyana (2012)’ yielded valuable information on the iron status of the Guyanese population. According to World Health Organisation (WHO) standards, 24 per cent of young children under five-years-old, 20.8 per cent of school children and 41.3 per cent of antenatal women were anaemic. A significant percentage of pregnant women with anaemia were 20-years-old and younger (51.0 per cent).
“This is of crucial public health significance and concern as iron deficiency has serious health consequences,” said Conway, who pointed out that “mounting evidence indicates that maternal iron deficiency in pregnancy reduces fetal iron stores; perhaps well into the first year of life.”
Moreover, an anaemic pregnant woman is at greater risk during the perinatal period.
To address this, recommendations from a Micronutrient Survey have emphasized that pregnant women were not only tested but counselled on the need for iron, when and how to use iron, and how much iron to use. It was also recommended that pregnant women and parents/guardians of young children be counselled on diet.
But Conway said that “awareness activities regarding iron-deficiency anaemia, a preventable health condition, are continuous and ongoing by the Food Policy Division of the Ministry of Public Health.”
It is for this reason that the Division under the theme “Healthy eating and active living: You, your health and your future,” is set to commence Nutrition Awareness Week.
And according to Conway, this year the outreach will be taken to Region 10 “where we will be conducting a two-day session with the pregnant teenagers”.
The session, Conway informed, will be held today and tomorrow at the Linden Enterprise Network (LEN) from 08:30 hrs. to 15:30 hrs. daily.
Participants will be exposed to educational and practical sessions on: Safe Motherhood, Healthy Diet and Meal Planning, Anaemia (including the use of Sprinkles), Early Childhood Development (focusing on Breastfeeding) and Empowering Teens to Return to School.
Conway stressed that “this outreach is another such activity as we continue to strive to achieve our goals in making our population healthier.”

1 thoughts on “Teen moms targeted as Nutrition Week gets underway”

Devil's advocate August 4, 2016 at 5:17 am

In as much as such an endeavor is commendable, I am apprehensive that Guyanese tax payers ought not to invest in policies that have more likelihood of failure. DO NOT START A PROGRAM THAT IS SHORT-LIVE — NOT ONGOING.
Ms. Conway has no source to support her claim of malnutrition with children born to teenage mothers in Guyana. May I suggest she commission and fund a study to support and sustain her efforts. What is more important for this initiative to bear fruits is aggressive and funded programs to arrest the problems of teenage pregnancy. Guyana must divorce itself from the mentality of the previous administration that prides itself in dealing with disasters rather that employing preventative measures ………