Chennai: Women can derive the best nutrition from a laddu made from chana, puffed rice (pori), jaggery, groundnut and oil, and returning to traditional foods, such as this, is advisable, said Dr K.K. Agarwal, immediate general secretary of the Indian Medical Association, in light of the neonatal deaths at the government hospital in Dharmapuri over the last four days.
Newborns dying due to low birth weight was related to maternal malnutrition, he said.
Women should abstain from refined carbohydrates. A soup made of seven cereals would be helpful as also keeping off carbohydrates one day in the week, fruits and vegetables alone being permissible.
Women in the child bearing age would benefit from chana, which provides proteins, and jaggery, which takes care of blood loss. As 85 per cent of women in the country were anaemic, this diet would help them substantially.
Women must also expose themselves to sunlight 45 minutes a week for Vitamin D.
The Union and state governments had many schemes catering to women’s health, but they had been poorly implemented. The governments needed to work out a separate budget to account for the expenditure incurred while reaching the beneficiaries, he added.
Further, Dr Agarwal pointed out that the IMA would soon work with child specialists to work out simple preventive measures to bring down the neonatal mortality rate.
