Effects of Complementary Feeding Counseling on Appropriate Complementary Feeding Practices and Child Undernutrition (ACFP)

Bahir Dar University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Feeding Behavior

Treatments: Behavioral: Complementary feeding counseling

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05871346

adenek2195

Details and patient eligibility

About

Appropriate complementary feeding practices as per the World Health Organization recommendations is a window of opportunity to promote health and prevent acute and chronic undernutrition (stunting, wasting & underweight). Globally, the burden of undernutrition remains unacceptably high, and the progress of undernutrition reduction is unsatisfactorily slow. In Ethiopia, appropriate complementary feeding practices of mothers to their children are very low. In contrast, child undernutrition is a major public health problem.

Full description

Appropriate nutrition during the first 1000 days of life lays the foundation for a child's health and well-being. Introduction of complementary foods within 6-8 months of age and step-wise increase of diversified plant and animal-based diets is necessary, for which exclusive breast milk is no longer enough to meet the nutritional needs. Appropriate complementary feeding practices as per the World Health Organization recommendations is a window of opportunity to promote health and prevent acute and chronic undernutrition (stunting, wasting & underweight). Globally, the burden of undernutrition remains unacceptably high, and the progress of undernutrition reduction is unsatisfactorily slow. In Ethiopia, appropriate complementary feeding practices of mothers to their children are very low. In contrast, child undernutrition is a major public health problem. This study aims to determine the effects of complementary feeding counseling on appropriate complementary feeding practices and child undernutrition through a community-based randomized controlled trial.

Enrollment: 776 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 6 to 21 months old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

1. Mother-child pairs whose children are 6 months old.
2. Mother-child pairs who reside in the study area for at least 6 months before the survey.
3. Mother-child pairs who have no intention of leaving the study area during the intervention period.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Mothers with severe mental illness or who are unable to communicate (e.g., deaf).
2. Mother-child pairs with severe congenital malformations of their children.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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776 participants in 2 patient groups

Complementary Feeding Counseling

Experimental group

Description:

Complementary feeding counseling to the mother-child pairs, in the intervention clusters, will be given by trained women development army (WDA) team leaders. The intervention process will have two components; training of WDA leaders, and counseling of mothers. Counselors' training will be given centrally by the principal investigator. During counseling, WDA leaders will use a counseling guide, which is prepared in Amharic, the local and the national language. The counseling guide contains seven key messages; complementary feeding: at 6 months, from 6-8 months, from 9-11 months, from 12-23 months, hygiene, breast feeding a sick child greater than 6 months, and signs that require mothers' special care of their children. Starting the children's 6 months of age, participants in the intervention group will receive in group counseling at convenient places, and individual counseling at each mother-child pair's home every month for 9 consecutive months (a total of 9 months follow up).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Complementary feeding counseling

Routine Complementary Feeding Counseling

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in the control clusters will receive the routine complementary feeding counseling, which is offered by heath extension workers and other health professionals.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Complementary feeding counseling