Need for implementing holistic nutrition through POSHAN Scheme to tackle Cerebral Palsy: NSS

Despite various schemes and plans to prevent undernourishment in India, a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that 14.5% of our population is undernourished. To overcome this, families below the poverty line should be granted about 35 kg of food grains per month at subsidized rates after implementation of "Antyodaya Anna Yojana" (AAY) for controlling the hunger crisis in India. Malnutrition not only represents the underweight and thin children but also represents children shorter than the average height for their age which is usually blamed on lack of proper nutritional habits with post-natal care.

Alleviating hunger in India requires a more complex strategy and big corporate initiatives that can help to eradicate hunger before 2030. There are reports which suggested that change in food habits and avoiding sugary products, junk food, and food that contains a negligible nutrient value.

In a recent case of 9-year-old Musami Dali, who was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, came to Narayan Seva Sansthan at Udaipur for treatment with her family, where the doctors from our team pointed out a major problem of undernourishment in her family. National Food Security Act provides significant options for pregnant mothers to get nutritious food but undernutrition is still highly increasing drastically day by day. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 4 stated in a report that 36.7% of children less than 5 years of age were underweight in Rajasthan in 2015-16.

There are multiple steps initiated by the Central government for eradicating the malnutrition crisis in India by proposing schemes like Holistic Nutrition or POSHAN Abhiyaan or National Nutrition Mission to improve the health of children, pregnant women, and lactating mothers. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the POSHAN Abhiyaan on the occasion of the International Women's Day on 8 March 2018 from Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan.

POSHAN Abhiyaan has been converged by multiple ministries to attain a malnourished free India by 2022. With an aim to provide and develop a holistic plan which is adequate for children, pregnant women and mothers, offering nourishment to reduce malnourishment and stunting in various districts across India, the government introduced the POSHAN Abhiyan. In the Global hunger index 2019, India ranked 102 out of 117 countries.

Vandana Agarwal, Director, Narayan Seva Sansthan said, "Cerebral Palsy is related to birth, pre-natal care and post-natal care, this calls for more concern and care in new mothers or mothers during their delivery and before they give birth to a normal child. The POSHAN Abhiyaan targets to reduce stunting, under-nutrition, anemia (among young children, women and adolescent girls), and low birth weight by 2 percent, 2 percent, 3 percent, and 2 percent per annum, respectively. It targets to bring down stunting among children in the age group 0-6 years from 38.4 percent to 25 percent by 2022. "

Narayan Seva Sansthan has worked on the principle of helping the differently-abled and the weaker section of the society through campaigns such as conducting corrective surgeries of over 4 lakh people. The Narayan Seva Sansthan supports child and mother nourishment through various campaigns and also encourages society to do the same.

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