The need for child or infant nutrition was highlighted at a seminar -- Early child nutrition for improving health profile – organised by the International Life Sciences Institute (India) and Micronutrient Initiative in Hyderabad on Friday. While 50 lakh children die of nutrition-related illnesses every year, more than half the population of the country are exposed to what has been called 'hidden hunger' resulting in an annual loss of Rs 100,000 crore in national income due to lower productivity and higher absenteeism.

Nutrition in the first year of a child is critical because some of the nutrient deficiencies that take place in that year can cause permanent damage to health and thus reduce productivity, according to D H Pai Panadikar, Chairman of ILSI-India. The purpose of the seminar was to examine the problems of early child nutrition and suggest strategies that are necessary to improve health among children and thereby prevent chronic diseases in adulthood.

In the first six months it is best, as was recommended by WHO, that the child gets all its nutrition exclusively from mother's milk. This presumes naturally that the mother is healthy to give birth to a healthy child and feed it with milk containing all necessary nutrients. However, this is not always the case, particularly in less developed countries like India.

After six months, complementary food has to be added to the child's diet, while continuing with mother's milk for another 18 months. The most prevalent nutrition deficiencies are those of iron, Vitamin A, iodine and protein-energy. Recent studies have also revealed high deficiencies in B-vitamins, folic acid and zinc. It needs to be recognised that deficiency of any one nutrient affects not only the biological functions dependent on that nutrient, but the entire metabolic mechanism.

Panadikar said nutrient deficiencies occurred because of poverty, ignorance, faulty feeding practices, foods with low nutrient density and low bioavailability. Hence, fortification of complementary foods was most essential. Good complementary foods should be within the purchasing power of the poorer sections of society where the problem of nutrient deficiency really exists.

Inaugurating the seminar, Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Dr Sivaprasada Rao said the subject was most relevant and useful for the society. He said child nutrition could not be discussed in isolation. The health of the mother was also equally important. The mother should be healthy and disease-free to take care of the infant. He said while in poor families the mother did not produce enough milk to feed the baby, it had become a fashion in higher societies to deprive the child of the mother's milk because of beauty consciousness among young women.

“We should concentrate on the health of the mother as well, otherwise she will deliver a unhealthy infant who will be a problem not only for the family but also to the society,” the Minister said.

Dr Rao said he was negotiating with some NRIs for the supply of fortified chocolates at a very low price for poor children. He said the seminar should evolve a formula for child nutrition and create an awareness programme for mothers and family members on how to grow children healthy and disease-free.

In his keynote address, Dr Lalith Nath, Consultant, WHO, and former Director and Dean, AIIMS, said child nutrition should begin even before the child was born. “Every child born into this world should get a good start in life and every opportunity to grow into a healthy, productive person. His paper explained the role played by factors that apply during the intrauterine period and even before conception.

He said studies done in India were consistent that about a third of the babies were born with a birth weight below 2.5 kg, in other words low birth weight babies. There was also ample evidence that about 40 per cent of mortality was in this group.

He discussed the need to expand conventional thinking about micro-nutrient programming. In spite of a longstanding intervention to address the issue of nutritional anaemia in pregnancy, very little headway had been made on a nationwide basis, he said.

Based on a community based study, he said low birth weight rate could be significantly reduced, and that this could be achieved without expensive interventions.

ILSI is a worldwide research foundation which brings together scientists from industry, government and academia to discuss issues concerning nutrition, food safety, biotechnology, environment and risk assessment in the light of latest scientific developments. It has 16 branches spread across the globe. ILSI-India, based in New Delhi, was set up six years ago and its jurisdiction is now extended to the South Asian region. It has organized a number of conferences to understand nutrition problems and evolve strategies to improve the nation's health profile.