Khammam: Though the government has been spending crores of rupees on the health of kids in the age group 0-3 years, the mortality rate among them is alarming. To check this, the government is collecting child-wise details including their weight, anaemia, nutrition-levels, etc.
Anganwadi supervisors were imparted special training for the purpose and they are collecting all the details. They were asked to collect the details and make a separate document for every child.
Underweight is one of the common problems among newborn babies. About 140 in every 1,000 newborn babies were identified to be underweight. Malnutrition among the kids (0-3 years) is another concern for the health authorities.
In this backdrop, the government wants to have complete details of every kid to solve the problem. The aim of the present review is to assess the burden of under-nutrition and over-nutrition, its determinants and strategies required to tackle malnutrition among under- three children.
There are 20 ICDS projects in Khammam and Bhadradri-Kothagudem districts and about 3,299 main and 1,006 minor anganwadi centres are working in the district. A total of 1.12 lakh kids aged below three years have been taking nutrition from these centres.
Around 12 per cent of these children are found to have stunted growth which means their height is less than the expected height of their age. Stunting rate remains persistently high among these children in Telangana. Around one-third of the children aged between 0-3 years and 40 per cent of 12-year-old children suffer from stunted growth.
They exhibit signs of thinness (under-nutrition). Anaemia is also a big problem among these children. We will get a clarity on the malnutrition, anaemia, underweight and overweight after completion of the survey. It will help us to address the health problems.
