The Healthy Baby Flipbook: piloting home-based counseling for refugee mothers to improve infant feeding and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) practices.

The objective of this study was to create and pilot educational materials for home-based counseling of refugee mothers along the Thailand-Myanmar border to improve appropriate infant feeding and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) behaviors. Mothers of infants received counseling on appropriate infant feeding and WASH practices on a monthly basis for a total of six months from infant age three months until nine months. Educational materials were designed to feature a basic script for health workers and photos of locally available, appropriate foods. Of the 20 mothers participating in this pilot, infant feeding and WASH behaviors improved within 1 to 2 months of the first visit, including exclusive breastfeeding, minimum acceptable diet, and safe disposal of infant stool. This pilot demonstrates improvement in maternal infant feeding and WASH practices in a small set of refugee mothers, providing evidence for counseling measures to improve infant health in vulnerable populations. PMID: 31154995 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Global Health Action - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Tags: Glob Health Action Source Type: research