By: Darsana, Assistant Health Team Leader
From 4 - 22 May, we continued the second phase of ‘family gatherings’ for groups of families with children under 2 years old, as part of the 4th year of our 5-year malnutrition study “Developing family-based nutrition intervention in Ban Village,” in partnership with Udayana University Medical Faculty, by educating 60 families on the importance of exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months, and appropriate complementary foods for their children after 6 months.
Our education program incorporates two methods: two-way communication and a game about “ASI saja cukup” (Breast milk is enough), adapted from the EMO DEMO game - developed by the Indonesian Ministry of Health. The game aims to illustrate to families the size of a baby’s stomach (1 day is equivalent to a marble, 1 week is equivalent to a ping pong ball, 1 month is equivalent to an egg) so that they will realize that if their child is less than 6 months old, they will have difficulty digesting food other than breast milk!
We hope that the families we educate can fully understand (a) why babies under 6 months old should not be given any foods other than breast milk, and (b) that they will share this information about the importance of exclusive breastfeeding to other families in their hamlets, so that eventually there are no more communities that give complementary foods to babies less than 6 months old. •
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