The pudding in the annaprashan ceremony

Six-month old Biwan Lakra sits comfortably ensconced in his mother’s lap. He is dressed in bright clothes and his eyes are lined with kohl. His mother, Sarita, wants him to look his best on his special day.

It is his annaprashan , the ceremony to celebrate the first solid food (rice) feeding for children who have completed six months. As Biwan is fed his first spoon of rice pudding, there is loud clapping and photographs are clicked.

Biwan is not the only one. There are several six-month-old children who have come to celebrate their annaprashan with Biwan at the Hatma anganwadi centre in Ranchi district, Jharkhand.

“The annaprashan ceremony is just a way to underline the importance of nutrition and need for complementary feeding for children. Many of the women from the marginalised communities are not aware of the impact that poor and unbalanced nutrition can have on their child. So, the annaprashan ceremony helps them learn what to feed their children,” says Kiran Mehta, Supervisor, Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS).

The strategy to make nutrition learning fun and interesting through ceremonies like annaprashan is a good one, considering there has been a decline in the percentage of children initiated into timely complementary feeding in the 6-8 months age group.

From 60 per cent in 2005-06, this has gone down to 47 per cent in 2015-16. Only 7 per cent of children aged between 6 and 23 months are fed diets that meet minimum levels of adequacy.

In other words, an overwhelming majority of children are not fed at a minimum age-appropriate frequency per day. Nor do they get diets that meet a minimum nutrient-dense level comprising at least four food groups, along with continued breastfeeding.

This has had severe consequences in Jharkhand. where every second child below the age of five is stunted. In other words, two million (45.3 per cent) under-fives are short for their age. Three in 10 (29 per cent) are wasted (thin for their height) and 7 out of 10 (69.9 per cent) are anaemic. About 5.8 lakh children below five years of age suffer severe acute malnourishment.

All these factors have a long-term impact on lowering learning capacity and increased school dropouts. This, in turn, lowers earning potential in adult life and leads to inter-generational transfer of under-nutrition and poverty.

Restarted after four years

In Jharkhand, ceremonies like annaprashan and goad bharai (felicitation of the pregnant woman) to address under-nutrition and malnutrition restarted after a gap of four years after the launch of the Poshan Abhiyan (Campaign for Holistic Nourishment) by the Prime Minister in March this year.

This campaign aims to improve the nutritional status of children up to six years of age and pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers through specific targets for stunting, underweight and low birth weight.

In Hatma, where anganwadis celebrate annaprashan and goad bharai on the second Wednesday of every month, the ceremonies are used to explain why a child needs proper nutrition.

“We inform them that the first 1,000 days of a child (from conception to the second birthday) are critical for physical and mental development and proper nutrition plays a big role in ensuring this,” says Karmi Lakra, an anganwadi assistant. Lakra, who has been working here since 2009, reveals that women are reluctant to discard their customary practices.

It took Lakra and her co-workers many months to bust various myths on nutrition and breastfeeding.

“Women were ignorant about breastfeeding. They used to give their new born goat’s milk as per their customs. It took some time for them to understand that mother’s first milk is best for the baby.”

Goad Bharai is an opportunity to learn about nutrition and healthcare during pregnancy Swapna Majumdar

Mansi Devi, 23, is pregnant with her second child. This is her first goad bharai . “My family can’t afford such ceremonies. So, I am really excited to be here. I am learning about the combination of foods that I should take so that both I and my baby remain healthy, I did not breastfeed my first child immediately after birth. But now I will,” she says.

According to Manoj Kumar, director, State department for women and child, with the month of September being designated as Poshan month, they intensified their campaign in all the 38,432 centres to ensure no one was left behind. “Our target is to bring down stunting by 2 per cent annually and anaemia by 3 per cent.”

The monitoring of Poshan month activities and their reporting in 10 districts has been supported by UNICEF, says Madhulika Jonathan, UNICEF head in Jharkhand.

“We need to focus on coverage, continuity, intensity and quality of essential nutrition interventions for greater impact on maternal and child health and nutrition. Only then can we reduce the annual loss of 2-3 per cent of India’s GDP due to under-nutrition among children under two years of age.”

The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi

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