Nutrition

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The children in our preschool are given a cooked and nutritious breakfast and lunch every day. They are weighed once a week to monitor healthy development.

Our HIV+ Income Generators are given a healthy meal each day. All HIV+ adults and children are given epap, a nutritional supplement, to take home.

We partner the Department of Health in a programme to care for malnourished children under 5. Our community caregivers have discovered so many people in Nyanga who are severely malnourished that the Dept of Health's food supplements lasted six months instead of twelve. Our Dietician has, however, been helped by other funders to buy more food supplements and to teach households without food security to grow their own vegetables

We have a team of five breastfeeding counsellors promoting breastfeeding amongst all Nyanga's mothers and mothers to be, including HIV+ women who are confident of being able to breastfeed exclusively for six months.

Formula milk has compromised the practice of exclusive breastfeeding in most countries, especially third world countries. Companies have in the past patented their products as being equal in quality to breastmilk. We know that breastmilk is far superior to any formula, and it is only in recent years that developing countries are making a stand against such companies by creating policies and codes to support and protect breastfeeding practices.

Unfortunately there is still a need for formula milk, especially in the context of HIV. The Department of health uses Nan Pelargon as the formula feeding option in prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT). HIV positive mothers should exclusively breastfeed for 6 months before they change to exclusive formula feeding. We now know that the risk of MTCT is only about 4 percent if you breastfeed (not exclusively) for the first 6 months, which far outweighs the increased risk of mortality associated with formula feeding due to poor sanitation and hygiene practices. Furthermore the risk of MTCT is closer to zero when exclusively breastfeeding for 6 months.

Because the DOH only supports HIV positive mothers for 6 months with formula milk, the PMTCT babies often fail to thrive after the 6 month period and end up underweight. The Nan Pelargon is however most acceptable in taste to these children as they have been using it ever since they were born. Because Nan Pelargon is acidified, it is partially digested and tastes a bit like sour milk. It is also easily digested compared to other formulas and reduces the risk of allergies associated with cows' milk. Furthermore, because these products are available on tender to NGO's and the DOH it is much cheaper than other products offered by other companies such as Abbott.

If it was at all possible we would prefer to use donated breastmilk for all these children instead of formula, but unfortunately this is not possible.