Nutri-CAP: Nutrition for Children, Adolescent Girls, and Pregnant Women in Slums of Dhaka City
The objective of the research project is to establish an evidence-based sustainable nutrition service delivery platform for optimizing pregnancy weight gain, increasing dietary diversity of adolescent girls, and ensuring proper physical growth of under 2 children. Hypothesis 1. Pregnant Women: Intensive nutrition and WASH counseling, iron-folate, calcium supplementation during pregnancy, can improve gestational weight gain and improve hemoglobin status in pregnant women in a slum of Dhaka city 2. Adolescent girl: Iron and zinc supplementation and nutrition counseling on dietary diversity could improve nutritional status and dietary diversity score in adolescent girls of slums in Dhaka 3. Children \<2 years: Counselling on IYCF, growth monitoring, and promotion, ensuring six-monthly vitamin A supplementation, counseling on WASH, treatment of acute malnutrition, and daily 1 egg supplementation for 3 months for severely stunted children can improve the nutritional status of children 4. Counselling to improve Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) practice: WASH intervention can improve EED biomarkers
• Pregnant women:
‣ Age 18-39 years
⁃ Before 16 weeks of gestation
⁃ BMI 15-24.99 kg/m2 measured on enrolment
⁃ Have the plan to stay in the study area till delivery
⁃ Willing to participate in the study
⁃ Not enrolled in any nutrition project/programme currently
∙ Adolescent girls:
• Aged 11-19 years
• Willing to participate in the study
• Not involved in any nutrition project/programme
• Will stay in the study area for the next 2 years
∙ Children:
• Aged 0-24 months
• Youngest child of the household
• Caregivers have the plan to stay in the study area at least up to two years of age
• Not enrolled in any nutrition project/programme currently