By Veenaa Annamalai | Pudiyador's Cradle Health and the Pandemic
Our Cradle Health program has bloomed during lockdown with more than 30 mothers joining the program from all our communities
Our Cradle Health Nutrition kit
One of our Cradle Mother, Mrs Muthulakshmi struggled a lot during the lockdown that happened as a result of the pandemic. She delivered a baby girl exactly two weeks before the lockdown. Once the lockdown was enforced, she found it extremely difficult to take care of her baby due to restricted movement and this consequently affected her breastfeeding. In order to help Mrs Muthulakshmi, we provided her with provisions to support her and her baby. However, after seeing how she was benefitted, we decided to help other mothers in our communities in a similar fashion. This was how our cradle health nutrition kit was formed.
Our cradle health kit is a weekly kit which is designed to provide a variety of healthy and nutritious supplements which supports one mother and child. Some of the items in the kit change on a weekly basis to introduce some variety for our cradle mothers. Items in the kit include things like eggs, legumes (green gram, moong dal), vegetables and fruits, milk, ghee, nuts and seeds, cereals etc. The kits are assembled in a convenience store within our communities and are safely distributed to our cradle mothers through our vendors.
During the pandemic, one of the most important ways to take care of one’s health focuses on increasing one’s immunity and resistance to the virus. This is even more crucial for expectant/new mothers and their infants as their immunity can be easily compromised. As infants receive their formative immunity and nutrition from breastmilk, it is important that mothers are constantly receiving a variety of foods that covers all the nutrients they require for themselves as well as the development of the infant.
Initially we had just 8 women who received these kits from us. Currently, we have close to 30 women from our communities who have been receiving these kits and have benefitted immensely from them. Over time, we have incorporated various recommendations made by our mothers and have constantly upgraded our kits.
The pandemic has raised issues of food security by exposing inefficiencies in existing food supply chains and making access to fresh and nutritious produce a serious challenge. Again, the most impacted are the socially and economically disadvantaged communities, who are at risk from starvation and are wholly dependent on relief efforts and support from others to meet their nutrition requirements. At Pudiyador, we have come to understand how such socio-economic inequalities impact expectant/new mothers more severely than any other group.
Partnering with Mommmy Talks
We resumed Part 2 of our Cradle Health Workshop with Mommy Talks. MommyTalks are lactation specialists that have helped our mothers understand different aspects of pregnancy and parenting. Our cradle mothers from our communities are participating in these weekly online sessions and more moms have joined our sessions.
Creating Tech Savvy Moms
During the lockdown as most of oursessions were online, we have taught our mothers basic skills like how to use the internet, functioning of different online applications etc. Our mothers have become technology savvy and are learning something new everyday!
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