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Antenatal care (ANC) provides a platform to counsel pregnant women on maternal nutrition and to prepare the mother to breastfeed. Recent reviews suggest that gaps in the coverage and quality of counselling during pregnancy may partly explain why services do not consistently translate to improved behavioural outcomes in South Asia. This scoping literature review collates evidence on the coverage and quality of counselling on maternal nutrition and infant feeding during ANC in five South Asian countries and the effectiveness of approaches to improve the quality of counselling. Coverage data were extracted from the most recent national surveys, and a scoping review of peer‐reviewed and grey literature (1990–2019) was conducted. Only Afghanistan and Pakistan have survey data on the coverage of counselling on both maternal nutrition and breastfeeding, nine studies described the quality of counselling and three studies assessed the effectiveness of interventions to improve the quality of services. This limited body of evidence suggests that inequalities in access to services, gaps in capacity building opportunities for frontline workers and the short duration and frequency of counselling contracts constrain quality, while the format, duration, frequency and content of health worker training, together with supportive supervision, are probable approaches to improve quality. Greater attention is needed to integrate indicators into monitoring and supervision mechanisms, periodic surveys and programme evaluations to assess the status of and track progress in improving quality and to build accountability for quality counselling, while research is needed to understand how best to assess and strengthen quality in specific settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some 37% (~64 million) South Asian children under 5 years are stunted. Most stunting occurs during the complementary feeding period (6-23 months). Our objective was to (a) characterize complementary feeding practices in South Asia and (b) review the effectiveness of information, education, and counselling (IEC) interventions aiming to improve complementary feeding in South Asia. We conducted a comprehensive review of (a) the latest nationally representative survey data and (b) peer-reviewed interventions (January 1990 to December 2015) that used IEC as the main strategy to improve complementary feeding. The analytical sample included 30,966 children aged 6-23 months. Foods made from grains are the main complementary food (76.8% of children). Only 33.2% of children are fed fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin A and a mere 17.1% are fed complementary foods containing meat, fish, poultry and/or eggs. Timely introduction, minimum meal frequency, minimum dietary diversity, and minimum acceptable diet were estimated at 57.4%, 47.7%, 33.0%, and 20.5%, respectively. The evidence on the effectiveness of IEC interventions is limited in quantity, quality, and scale. The 12 intervention studies that met the inclusion criteria indicate that IEC interventions delivered by many types of primary care workers/community resource persons using multiple contact opportunities improved the timeliness, frequency, diversity, and/or adequacy of complementary feeding. However, acceptability, availability, and affordability seem to constrain improvements in diet diversity, particularly foods of animal origin. The small size of most intervention studies and the training and/or supervision intensity of counsellors raise concerns about the potential for scale and/or sustainability of some of the interventions reviewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global evidence shows that children's growth deteriorates rapidly during/after illness if foods and feeding practices do not meet the additional nutrient requirements associated with illness/convalescence. To inform policies and programmes, we conducted a review of the literature published from 1990 to 2014 to document how children 0–23 months old are fed during/after common childhood illnesses. The review indicates that infant and young child feeding (IYCF) during common childhood illnesses is far from optimal. When sick, most children continue to be breastfed, but few are breastfed more frequently, as recommended. Restriction/withdrawal of complementary foods during illness is frequent because of children's anorexia (perceived/real), poor awareness of caregivers' about the feeding needs of sick children, traditional beliefs/behaviours and/or suboptimal counselling and support by health workers. As a result, many children are fed lower quantities of complementary foods and/or are fed less frequently when they are sick. Mothers/caregivers often turn to family/community elders and traditional/non ‐ qualified practitioners to seek advice on how to feed their sick children. Thus, traditional beliefs and behaviours guide the use of ‘special’ feeding practices, foods and diets for sick children. A significant proportion of mothers/caregivers turn to the primary health care system for support but receive little or no advice. Building the knowledge, skills and capacity of community health workers and primary health care practitioners to provide mothers/caregivers with accurate and timely information, counselling and support on IYCF during and after common childhood illnesses, combined with large ‐ scale communication programmes to address traditional beliefs and norms that may be harmful, is an urgent priority to reduce the high burden of child stunting in South Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nutritional status of women before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and after delivery has far reaching consequences for maternal health and child survival, growth, and development. In South Asia, the high prevalence of short stature, thinness, and anaemia among women of reproductive age underlie the high prevalence of child undernutrition in the region, whereas overweight and obesity are rising concerns. A systematic review of evidence (2000–2017) was conducted to identify barriers and programme approaches to improving the coverage of maternal nutrition interventions in the region. The search strategy used 13 electronic bibliographic databases and 14 websites of development and technical agencies and identified 2,247 citations. Nine studies conducted in Bangladesh (n = 2), India (n = 5), Nepal (n = 1), and Pakistan (n = 1) were selected for the review, and outcomes included the receipt and consumption of iron and folic acid and calcium supplements and the receipt of information on dietary intake during pregnancy. The studies indicate that a range of barriers acting at the individual (maternal), household, and health service delivery levels affects intervention coverage during pregnancy. Programme approaches that were effective in improving intervention coverage addressed barriers at multiple levels and had several common features: use of formative research and client assessments to inform the design of programme approaches and actions; community‐based delivery platforms to increase access to services; engagement of family members, as well as pregnant women, in influencing behavioural change; actions to improve the capacity, supervision, monitoring, and motivation of front‐line service providers to provide information and counselling; and access to free supplements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there has been a focus on preventing stunting over the past decade, wasting has received less policy and programmatic attention. Recent national surveys from six South Asian countries were pooled to generate a dataset of 62,509 children aged 0 to 59 months to explore associations between low birthweight (LBW) and suboptimal infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices with child wasting, severe wasting, and the co‐occurrence of wasting and stunting. Logistic regression models accounted for the surveys' clustered designs and adjusted for a potential confounding factors. Children with reported LBW had significantly higher odds of being wasted (adjusted odds ratio [95% CI]: 1.60 [1.45, 1.76]) or severely wasted (1.57 [1.34, 1.83]), compared with non‐LBW children. Similarly, children aged 0 to 23 months who were not breastfed within the first hour post‐partum, those who were provided prelacteal feeds, and those aged 0 to 5 months who were not exclusively breastfed, were more likely to be wasted (P < 0.05 for all three feeding practices). In India, not achieving minimum diet diversity and minimum adequate diet were significantly associated with the co‐occurrence of stunting and wasting. In other words, many key domains of concern to development agents who seek to address stunting are also of direct concern to those focused on wasting. The co‐occurrence of wasting and stunting requires more integrated interventions. That is, programmes aimed at preventing LBW and poor IYCF to avert stunting should be linked more effectively with actions aimed at the management of wasting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]