NUTRIKID 2024. showing nutritional status

nutiritional status and feeding challenges

1. NUTRITIONAL STATUS AND FEEDING CHALLENGES IN CHILDREN AGED 0-2 YEARS WITH OROFACIAL CLEFT: A CROSS SECTIONAL OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

3. MATERIALS AND METHODS

4. MATERIALS AND METHODS

5. RESULTS Demographic Profile : Males (57.8%) aged 0-6 months (42.2%) predominated the study. Type of Orofacial Cleft : Unilateral cleft lip+ palate (31.1%) > unilateral cleft lip (26.7%) > bilateral defects with equal male: female preponderance in most. Birth Events : 40% babies had NICU admissions, amongst which, 33.3% had feeding issues alone and 16.7% had feeding issues with respiratory distress. Feeding: Only 37.8% were given 1 st feeds within 1 hr of life while majority (46.7%) had delayed the initial feeding to 24 hours of life. 32.2% were given EBM as the initial feed while only 4.4% babies were directly breastfed and remaining were given supplementary feeds. Paladai feeding was resorted to by majority followed by bottle feeding, Haberman's nipple, spoon/ droppers. Only 22.2% had timely initiation of complementary feeding at 6 completed months. Nutritional Status : 40% were underweight, 15.6% wasted and 8.9% stunted for age IYCF indicators were found to be far below NFHS-5 survey values Impacts on Life : Social stigma, financial constraints and lack of family support were the main life impacts noted

6. CONCLUSSION 40% of babies with orofacial cleft were admitted to NICU with feeding difficulties and poor weight gain. IYCF practices were sub optimal when compared to NFHS-5 data. Nutritional inadequacy and collapse of IYCF practices in the form of hesitancy and failure to initiate and maintain direct breastfeeding were noted. Awareness regarding the feeding techniques in orofacial cleft was poor . Despite the fact that Kerala being a state with highest literacy rate with good education status of mothers, only 57.8% of mothers received feeding advice. Hence a dedicated nutritional counsellor is the need of the hour. Paladai feeding was found to be equally effective as any other feeding device in terms of weight gain.