Nutrition Meetings, January 2014

Nutrition meetings were held in Buena Vista and La Victoria on Wednesday, January 15th and in Llanos de Pinal on Thursday, January 16th.  In preparation for the three nutrition meetings, the Pop Wuj Medical Spanish students and staff prepared bags of vitamins and Nutributter and/or Mani+ to be distributed to the participant families. 

Luby, the Pop Wuj staff nurse, begins registering the families as they arrive in Llanos del Pinal.

Pop Wuj Medical students and staff reviewed appropriate feeding practices for babies depending on their age.

Pop Wuj Medical Spanish students perform an educational skit for the mothers.

Carmen reminds the mothers about the best way to use the fortified peanut butter supplements.

The Pop Wuj Nutrition Program is slowly switching to Mani+ (Mani Plus) which is a different type of fortified peanut butter.  Mani+ is formulated to meet the deficiencies in the typical Guatemalan diet.  Mani+ is manufactured in Guatemala and we hope that the supply issues will be resolved shortly so that we can make the final transition from Nutributter (produced in the U.S.) to Mani+.

Snack time!

All the babies were weighed and measured before meeting with a doctor for their nutrition consult.  There are currently approximately 80 babies enrolled in the project.  The largest group is in Llanos del Pinal where we expanded our program in June, 2013.  In Guatemala 48% of children under 5 years of age are chronically malnourished.

Some babies love nutrition meetings!

At the end of the meeting each mother receives a month's supply of prenatal vitamins as well as month's supply of children's vitamins for each older child in the family.  Each baby between the ages of 6 and 24 months receives a month's supply of fortified peanut butter (Nutributter or Mani+).

Some babies do not.

Pop Wuj will return to Buena Vista and La Victoria on February 6th and to Llanos del Pinal on February 13th for the next meeting.