Weaning project -- improving young child feeding practices in Indonesia : project overview

The project has clearly demonstrated that an enhanced nutrition education component can improve substantially the impact of Indonesia"s national nutrition program (UPGK). The program appears to have improved mothers" knowledge about infant feeding, positively changed feeding practices, contributed to better diets being offered and consumed by young children, and has led to improved nutritional status, albeit moderate. Lessons learned are as follows. (1) The project"s educational content responded to the major problems mothers were experiencing -- it was not just a transfer of nutrition information. A rigorous protocol was tested for examining families" child feeding practices; this protocol could now be streamlined for use in other provinces. (2) The messages that had the most impact were precisely stated and had a name or product identity associated with them. Certain concepts, however, were not captured effectively, and although stated precisely, were not identified well; recommendations for improving the messages are provided. (3) The important role of interpersonal communication, especially via the kader (volunteer village health worker), cannot be overstated. Kaders gave specific messages to mothers for their child of a certain age. Having this specific information and having been trained in how to counsel seemed to increase the kaders" confidence in giving advice and the mothers" receptivity. (4) Supervision of kaders emerged as an important determinant of their work as educators. (5) The total package of educational materials and the mix of media seem to have been appropriate, since even those mothers who do not recall direct contact with the program have been influenced by it. It is important not to limit the program only to health channels, but to make it a community program. Includes findings from baseline research on actual practices relating to weaning, child feeding, and child care, reasons for these behaviors, and mothers" beliefs and their knowledge of child nutrition.