NGOs, Benguet town team up vs stunting among kids

BAGUIO CITY—The Philippines now has the highest incidence of stunting among children. It also has the highest number of babies with low birth weight in Southeast Asia.

Compared to the Vietnamese, Malaysians and Thais, Filipinos are small not just because of genetic makeup.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed that 33 percent of children under five years are stunted or even wasted.

They have a higher risk of infections, long-term illness, mental disability and early death.

Since poor nutrition from conception is the main cause of stunting and a key factor in low birth weight, providing nutrition support for poor pregnant and breast-feeding mothers is crucial in addressing this national burden.

While Unicef and PhilHealth have recently launched a protection and service package for prematurely born and low birth weight babies, the government still has to begin a program that ensures pregnant and lactating mothers eat enough.

Feeding programs are mainly for children from 3 to 12 years old, but feeding them is too late to prevent stunting.

At the moment, because only a handful of nongovernment organizations are helping mothers in this way, working together has become an effective strategy for success.

The Baguio-based Igorota Foundation Inc. partnered with Manila’s La Proteccion de la Infancia Inc., the country’s oldest charity organization known for over a century as Gota de Leche, to regularly deliver basic health food packs and vitamins to women of Kibungan town in Benguet province.

Rosella Camte Bahni, Igorota executive director, said Kibungan is No. 1 in Benguet for underweight children and No. 2 in stunted growth.

“We coordinated with the municipal nutritionist and rural health units who identified the beneficiaries based on their records on the status of the children’s weights,” she said.

Kibungan and its mountainside villages may be a geographically isolated and disadvantaged area (Gida).

There are no means of transportation. Some project beneficiaries began walking to the town center before 5 a.m. to reach the project launching before 10 a.m. in November.

Transportation is a challenge that families face when they go to town to sell their farm produce, to buy medicine and basic goods or even to give birth.

The DOH accounts for only one doctor per 33,000 Filipinos. Compared to other Gidas in Cordillera, Kibungan residents are lucky to have a rural health unit completely staffed by a full-time doctor, a nurse, a midwife and several health workers.

Since Gota de Leche’s monitoring procedures require a monthly observation of weight and height gain among the children of beneficiary mothers, Igorota has to work with the community health practitioners.  —ANNA LEAH SARABIA AND RHEA JOY AMPAL, CONTRIBUTORS