Reproductive Child Health has been one of the key mandate of Mamta Samajik Sanstha since its inception. We have tried to reach more than 600 villages and city slums in Uttarakhand and western U.P. and covered more than half a million population with some message and service petaining to the RCH. Our main focus has been women, adolescent girls and children and we reached with some kind of service to atleast 1,50,000 such beneficiaries in the past 20 years.
We have been providing RCH services through our head office and field offices , conducting medical check up camps and special drives on Reproductive child Health in rural and urban areas to create awareness among the community about Reproductive child health, particularly among women of reproductive age and adolescent girls. There were different kinds of activities like Mothers meeting. Adolescent girls Meeting, Baby show, School health program, health check up etc. conducted with the help of health & ICDS Deptts., particularly with the help of Lady Doctors, ANMs, Health visitors CDPO, Supervisors, AWWs, & helpers of ICDS. Mamta Team used Flash card, Posters, Leaflets, handbills on various components of health, Nutrition & RCH to educate the people. Mamta also put up exhibition and displayed IEC material during these programmes to make people understand the various aspects of health care.
Following topics were covered during RCH Camps: –
- Care of Pregnant and lactating Mothers
- Importance of 5 clean at the time of delivery
- Importance of Breast feeding and care of New born
- Importance of immunization including pulse polio and Vitamin – supplementation.
- Care of Anaemic Mothers & Adolescent girls. ‘
- Care of Anaemic Mothers & Adolescent girls.
- Care of undernourished children
- Growth Monitoring of children under the age of 5 years.
- Importance of small family norms & various methods of family welfare, contraceptives etc.
- Knowledge about Nutrition, Micro-nutrients i.e. Iron, Vitamin-A, IDD.
- Control and treatment of childhood diseases like Diarrhea, Pneumonia and measles etc.
- Knowledge about STD, AIDS, T.B., etc.
- Health & Nutrition of Adolescent girls.
Some of the highlights of our RCH activities:
- More than 40,000 children have been protected in the last 20 years against killer diseases by providing routine immunization with the help of local Primary health centre.Also we have protected lives of children from other killer diseases such as diarrhea, Vitamin A deficiency, Iron deficiency, NNT, etc. by providing ORS packets, Vitamin A solution, Iron folic acid through Swasthya Ghars(Health Hubs) in 30 blocks of 6 districts.
- Maternal & Child Health Care Project : Mamta has undertaken a campaign on Mother & Child health care in 20 blocks of Garhwal with the networks of 13 NGOs. This campaign was undertaken to strengthen village community further in order to bring complete change in the behaviour of village community in terms of seeking services of better health care. The project was undertaken between May-Dec, 99.Beside networking agencies of 6 districts, village core groups, swasthya ghars(Health Hubs), Mahila Mangal Dals(Women Groups), Panchayats(Local Elected Villages Representatives),colleges & schools and concerned govt. departments were also involved.
We had identified approximately 1000 households in each block through core groups, swasthya ghars & village communities. Then in each village we have identified community mobilizers through above-mentioned groups to use them for household health survey and campaign activities. Each community mobilizer was made responsible of working with 40-50 households and they were given recognition through provision of volunteer badge & certificate for their meritorious performance. A survey format was developed to take information about children below 2 years, pregnant and lactating mothers, water & sanitation, use of iodized salt and common diseases etc. We have promoted following actions at village level by conducting house to house survey, village meetings and IEC activities:
Promoted universal early Registration of Pregnancy for antenatal care, Tetanus Toxic (TT) immunization, Iron Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation, promotion of improved weight gain during pregnancy.
- Promoted universal birth registration.
- Promoted weighing of newborn babies within 24 hours at sub-centres/ICDS centres.
- Promoted universal coverage of children with BCG/DPT/Polio/Measles immunization.
- Promoted correct case management in Diarrhea diseases and acute respiratory infections at home, at anganwadi centres and through health facilities.
- Promoted exclusive breast feeding (no water) from birth to 6 months, appropriate care of lactating mothers and low birth weight babies.
- Promoted appropriate and timely complementary feeding using household resources, starting at 6 months with continued breast feeding well into the second year.
- Promoted universal coverage of children 9 months – 3 years with appropriate administration schedule of vitamin A supplements.
- Ensured universal availability of iodized salt.
- Promoted small family norms by giving them choice of various contraceptives
- Promoted the concept of appropriate birth timing and spacing in married girls <20 years
Created awareness about prevention of TB,STD and HIV/AIDS
Social Mobilization for Child Care & Nutrition:
- Mamta undertaken a project on Social Mobilization for Child Care & Nutrition, which was commonly known as “Poshan Pariyojna” in Vikas Nagar block of Distt. Dehradun in 58 villages with the support of UNICEF,Lucknow from June’ 2000 – Jan’ 2003.We worked closely in collaboration with ICDS, Health Department, Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs), Schools/Colleges and NHFs. We have provided counseling on health and nutrition to more than 15000 beneficiaries like newly wedded couple, pregnant mothers, lactating mothers and malnourished children below the age of 5 years. Besides counseling we have provided ANC, PNC and immunization services through the networks of ICDS and health department. We have administered Vitamin A doses in two phases to 10527 children and polio drops to 10489 children. Our major contribution was to bring out 250 severely malnourished children out from grade III and IV to normal grade.
- Currently also we are conducting RCH camps through our head office and field offices and providing services on all RCH components to the beneficiaries.