14 March 2024 – Today, UNICEF released The Improving Maternal Nutrition: An Acceleration Plan to Prevent Malnutrition and Anaemia during Pregnancy (2024–2025). The Plan aims to reach 16 million women in 16 priority countries by 2025, delivering essential nutrition services via antenatal care programs. The package of essential nutrition services in the plan includes nutrition information, education, and counseling, healthy weight gain monitoring, multiple micronutrient supplementation (MMS), deworming prophylaxis and malaria control according to context, nutritional screening and referral for supplementation with balanced energy-protein (BEP) if needed according to context.
The plan proposed five key strategies to deliver these services – 1. Strengthen advocacy and policies for the prevention of micronutrient deficiencies and anemia in pregnant women, 2. improve the delivery of maternal health and nutrition services, 3. increase the capacity of service providers at facility and community levels to ensure quality delivery of the essential package of services, 4. increase supplies of essential commodities to meet the growing global demand, 5. harness #data and generate evidence and learning in development settings (implementation research) and humanitarian settings (emergency preparedness and response) to inform policy and program decisions, and strengthen accountability for adolescent girls and women.
Adequate nutrition during pregnancy is critical for the health and survival of mothers and their newborns. Delivering essential nutrition services such as MMS via antenatal care programs can go a long way in bridging inequities and helping mothers and babies thrive.
