MAMBAJAO, CAMIGUIN, March 16, 2012 (PIA) – Some fifty eight Barangay Nutrition Scholars (BNS) in Camiguin undergoes briefing on the new World Health Organization (WHO) Multicentre Growth Reference Study (MGRS), which recommended new criteria, health behaviors, and the provision of standard pediatric care.
The new standard is being referred to as the WHO-Child Growth Standards (WHO-CGS) and it is used anywhere in the world.
The WHO study revealed that children everywhere grow in similar patterns when their nutrition and health care needs are being meet.
Camiguin Provincial Nutrition Program Coordinator, Telesfora G. Madelo explained that this new method will help improve policies and public support especially on breastfeeding, with the establishment of breastfed infants as models for normal growth and development.
“The charts will show standard patterns of the expected growth rate over time enabling health care providers to identify children who at risk of becoming undernourished or overweight earlier, before such problem level is being reached,” she added.
Madelo said the activity teaches nutrition scholars how to counsel mothers and caregivers about growth and feeding using the new CGS charts and tables.
She said the old system did not include data on stunted and wasted children from 0-71 months, adding that the height of children during this year’s mass weighing will now be recorded.
Madelo also noted that for the past five years, the province malnutrition rate is consistently decreasing, posting only a 7 percent rate last year. (PIA 10)
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