Issue I, January 2010: Launch of A&T website and newsletter
Issue 1, January 2010
Alive & Thrive (A&T) is an initiative supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve infant and young child feeding in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Viet Nam and to inform policies and programs around the world. Welcome to the first issue of our e-newsletter.
Launch of A&T Website
On our website, www.aliveandthrive.org, you will find:
- Information on country programs, including strategies and expected results
- Resources, including technical briefs, program tools, and research abstracts
- Updates on our Small Grants Program
- News on infant and young child nutrition
Featured Resource
Insight: Saving newborn lives through early initiation of exclusive breastfeeding
Our first technical brief explores the pathways by which early and exclusive breastfeeding reduces newborn deaths and discusses program implications.
Featured Video
Committed to the cause Jean Baker, A&T's project director, discusses how her experiences in public health shaped her long-term commitment to improving infant and young child feeding.
Abstract Digest
The A&T website and newsletter will feature research studies on recently published articles, highlighting key information about infant and young child feeding and program implications. View the full digest, with 10 abstract summaries, or read the excerpts from four of the summaries below.
Nigerian women who were randomized to receive psychosocial support during childbirth from a companion had a lower Cesarean-section rate, shorter duration of labor, lower pain scores, a more satisfying birth experience, and initiated breastfeeding. In settings where nurses and midwives are overwhelmed with other tasks, a companion can help encourage the mother to initiate breastfeeding soon after giving birth.
While instant, commercially-available fortified complementary foods are convenient because they do not require additional cooking, bacterial counts of such products in Tanzania were higher than those found in cooked porridges, in large part because of contaminated water used to prepare the instant foods. Food safety concerns should be addressed when improving complementary foods in order to minimize risk of exposure to food-borne pathogens and ensuing gastrointestinal illness.
Delayed cord clamping: advantages for infants
Delayed cord clamping (waiting ~3 minutes after delivery, or until pulsations cease) has immediate benefits and reduces the risk of anemia in later infancy. Sharing new evidence with health care providers and working out logistical challenges are important steps in incorporating this beneficial procedure into birthing practices.
A preventive approach involving blanket (untargeted) distribution of a lipid-based nutrient supplement (Plumpy'doz®) by Médecins san Frontières (MSF) to approximately 60,000 children in Niger aged 6 to 36 months during the 6-month "hungry season" in 2007 was associated with a reduction in the prevalence and incidence of severe acute malnutrition, and the expected rise in new cases during the hungry season was not only arrested but reversed. When compared to the previous year's program of treatment only (targeted to children with severe acute malnutrition), the blanket distribution strategy cost 29% more but benefitted twice as many children.
Alive & Thrive
aliveandthrive@aed.org
www.aliveandthrive.org
Alive and Thrive is a consortium of organizations, comprised of AED, BRAC, GMMB, IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute), Save the Children, University of California-Davis, and World Vision.