World Food Programme (WFP)

Promoting Safe Motherhood (in collaboration with the provincial health, planning and development departments, and with UNFPA, UNICEF, WHO, and The Asia Foundation)

Objectives:

• To improve the health of women and children in the targeted areas by promoting safe motherhood;

• To address the special nutrition and nutrition-related health needs of expectant and nursing mothers and their young children;

• To raise awareness on health issues among the beneficiaries.

Activities:

• Provide a tin of oil for each of two prenatal, and two postnatal visits to 388,500 pregnant and nursing mothers who will visit selected government health centres and Basic Health Units (BHUs) to obtain reproductive health care services;

• Provide tetanus injections and reproductive health messages at prenatal and postnatal visits, with BCG and DPT1 vaccinations for infants in the latter case;

• Promote health education, which includes mother’s nutrition, the use of trained birth assistants, breast-feeding, family planning and good weaning practices;

• Improve the quality of the health messages package in collaboration with UNFPA, which is planning a comprehensive Integrated Reproductive Health Services (IRHS) package;

• Distribute iron-folate tablets to women beneficiaries so as to provide them with essential micro-nutrients, and conduct an impact assessment of the iron supplements;

• Reduce the number of participating districts to 34 from the initial 80 in 1997, and increasing the number of participating BHUs within those districts;

• Commence an 18-month pilot activity in which 4,000 pregnant women will receive Fortified Blended Food (FBF) rations (initially this FBF will be Wheat Soya Blend);

• Conduct a strong campaign to provide the beneficiaries information on proper FBF usage, recipes, and promote FBF as a special supplement for expectant and nursing mothers only, so as to minimize distribution within the family.