The first 1000 days of life is the period from a woman’s gestation until her child is 2 years old and is critical for child development. Optimal nutrition during this period can help malnutrition and its adverse, lasting effects. Crucial nutrients during this period include proteins, polyunsaturated fatty acids, iron, zinc, copper, iodine, choline, folate, and vitamins A, D, B6, and B12.
It’s a time of unparalleled growth for children’s bodies and brains, during which the foundations are laid for lifelong health and development. The first 1000 days are considered the “ window of opportunity” for nutrition interventions because, during this phase, optimum nutrition has the biggest positive impact, while poor nutrition can have adverse effects that last a lifetime.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF MALNUTRITION DURING THE FIRST 1000 DAYS
Children who don’t get the right nutrients at the right time during the first 1000 days are at risk of malnutrition. Weak Children are more likely to come ill and have an advanced threat of dying. Weak children are over 12 times more likely to die than their well-nourished peers, and malnourishment remains the underpinning cause in 45 of all deaths in children under 5.
For those who survive, malnutrition can have ruinous effects on children, their families, communities, and entire nations. Malnutrition in the first 1000 days can beget unrecoverable damage to children’s growing bodies and minds. This affects their capability to do well in the academic field and makes it harder for them to rise out of poverty when they grow up.
The 1000 days between a woman’s gestation and her child’s alternate birthday offer a brief but critical window of occasion to shape a child’s development. It’s a time of both tremendous eventuality and enormous vulnerability. How well or how inadequately a child fares during his first 1000 days can mean the difference between a thriving future and one characterized by struggle.
New exploration into the fields of neuroscience and early nonage development is shedding light into how our brains develop and how our capacities are moreover nourished or baffled. Together with stable, responsive connections with caregivers and safe and nurturing surroundings, nutrition during a child’s first 1000 days builds the foundation for a child’s development.
When one or more of these supports is absent, a child’s physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development can suffer, leading to the loss of openings that are every child’s birthright. Good nutrition during pregnancy and early birth plays a foundational part in enabling a child to grow, learn, and thrive.
In a real sense, nutrition provides the energy that drives a child’s early development. During the first 1000 days, the brain grows more snappily than at any other time in a person’s life, and a child needs the right nutrients at the right time to feed the baby’s brain’s rapid development. There are three pivotal stages in the first 1000 days: gestation, infancy, and toddlerhood.
At each stage during the 1000 days window, the developing brain is vulnerable to poor nutrition- either through the absence of crucial nutrients needed for proper cognitive functioning and neural connections and/ or through the “toxic stress ” endured by a youthful child whose family has endured prolonged or acute adversity caused by food instability.
THE DEVELOPMENTAL COURSE OF THE HUMAN BRAIN
The effects of poor nutrition on a child’s brain development can be profound and long-lasting, which is why it’s critical to understand how to ensure that the children get the nutrition they need to thrive throughout their first 1000 days. Nutrition shapes a child’s brain development in three stages: pregnancy, Infancy, and Early birth.
Gestation – During pregnancy, the child’s brain develops at an astonishing speed. It begins to grow veritably beforehand on in gestation the neural tube forms just 16 days after generality and by 7 months a child’s brain takes on a form that resembles that of a grown-up’s. At the 4th week of pregnancy, the brain has an estimated 10,000 cells- by the 24th week, it contains 10 billion.
The nutrition that a baby gets from his mama through his/her diet is the necessary energy that drives much of this inconceivable metamorphosis. Starting in gestation, nutrients are demanded for the creation of new neurons, which accelerates the speed of impulses traveling from one cell to another. Nutrients also fuel the conformation of synapses, which give the base for learning capability.
When a new mother lacks acceptable calories, protein, fatty acids, or other crucial micronutrients in her gestation period, these vital neurodevelopmental processes can be affected. One must also keep in mind that over 50% of the women in Odisha are anaemic and give birth to light children. Several nutrients play an important part in nourishing the brain during gestation.
These include iron, protein, folate, zinc, iodine, and certain fats. Zinc, in particular, supports the development of the autonomic nervous system, the hippocampus, and the cerebellum, while iron impacts the myelination of the filaments, which affects the brain’s processing speed. Long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, generally set up in breast milk, fish oil, and egg yolks, play a central part in the healthy development and functioning of the brain and the eyes.
NUTRITION IN THE FIRST 1000 DAYS
A mother’s diet and her nutrient stores are the only sources of nutrition for the developing baby. When a pregnant woman doesn’t get the calories, crucial nutrients, or essential proteins she needs to support her baby’s development, her baby is placed at risk for experimental detainments, birth issues, and cognitive poverties. For illustration, folate is critical to the early development of the brain and spine. When a woman lacks sufficient folic acid before getting pregnant and in the early weeks of her gestation, the development of the neural tube can go amiss, leading to birth issues of the brain and spine (anencephaly and spina bifida) that can beget death or lifelong disability.
Infancy – Infancy is also a time of remarkable brain development and growth, which is primarily fueled by the treatment a baby receives. During this time, the brain is developing motor functions similar to balance, collaboration, and posture. This is also a critical time for hippocampal- prefrontal connections, which enable the child to produce and recreate memories. When it comes to brain development, breastmilk is the ultimate superfood. Breastmilk contains a variety of nutrients, growth factors, and hormones that are vital for a child’s early brain development.
Because breastmilk is a living substance with unique factors that can not be replicated in any other child formula, its impact on brain development is unequaled. Using neuroimaging technology, scientists have been able to see that children who were simply breastfed (no food or liquids other than breastmilk) for at least 3 months had increased white matter development in several brain regions associated with administrative functioning, planning, social-emotional functioning, and language.
A recent study followed pre-mature babies from birth until latterly childhood and set up that children who were fed more breastmilk within the first 28 days of life had larger volumes of certain regions of the brain and by age 7, had advanced masterships and better scores in reading, mathematics, working memory and motor function tests. Breastfeeding is constantly associated with advanced performance on intelligence tests among children and adolescents.
In particular, suckling for 12 months or further is associated with a 3-point increase in IQ as well as advanced educational attainment and income. It appears that both the breastmilk itself as well as the experience of breastfeeding contributes to the healthy development of a child’s brain. Babies’ minds are shaped not only by the quality of the nutrition they get but also by the quality of the gestures and relations they’ve with caregivers.
Because the physical act of breastfeeding involves a great deal of “mama – child” nurturing, it plays an important part in strengthening a baby’s sensitive and emotional circuitry, which are critical for both cognitive and socio-emotional development. Unfortunately, too few children are breastfed despite its critical part in brain development. The reasons why women avoid or stop breastfeeding vary, but it’s clear from the exploration that women who want to breastfeed need stronger support from their families, communities, health care providers, and employers.
EARLY CHILDHOOD – In the toddler stage, a child’s brain continues to grow and develop at a rapid pace. The speed of a child’s neural processing- that is, how easily the brain can interpret and bear information- also increases dramatically during early childhood, enabling the youthful brain to perform more complex tasks. During this time, a youthful child’s brain is busy forming synapses, the connections that allow neurons (brain cells) to communicate with one another. Throughout early childhood, a child creates synapses at a rate that is brisker than at any other time in his/her life and creates more of them than they will need.
In these early times of a child’s life, more than 1 million new neural connections are formed every second. A toddler’s brain has up to twice as many synapses as it’ll have in the majority. The excess of synapses produced by a child’s brain during this stage makes the brain largely responsive to external input and gives it the capability to shape itself. This capability, known as neuroplasticity, enables human beings to acclimatize to changing surroundings and circumstances.
Importantly, in the 2nd year of a child’s life, synapses in the brain’s language areas are developing and getting more connected, leading to an increase in a child’s language capacities. Food provides the energy for the extraordinary brain development that takes place in early nonage, and proper nutrition during this period remains critically important. In particular, protein, iron, zinc, and iodine are essential to the toddler’s developing brain. Iron plays a significant part in brain development throughout the first 1000 days, and the damage done by iron insufficiency in pregnancy and the first 2 years of a child’s life can be unrecoverable.
Children in periods 1 to 3 bear 7 mg of iron daily, and unless toddlers are fed meat or other iron-rich foods, they’re unlikely to consume enough iron. Iron insufficiency in babies and toddlers can lead to disabled literacy and social and emotional behaviour, including lower social connection and alertness, increased anxiety, weariness and inhibited behaviour,
and lower interest in play. This, in turn, can reduce the quantum of attention and care given by caregivers and preceptors, further contributing to poorer experimental issues.
Iron insufficiency also appears to affect the brain’s neurochemistry, and studies have shown that early iron insufficiency is associated with advanced situations of anxiety and depression later in life with impacts for consequent job eventuality. While poor nutrition is poisonous to the healthy development of youthful children, other factors in children’s surroundings can also negatively affect how the brain develops.
The malleability of the youthful child’s brain makes it particularly sensitive to elevated situations of stress hormones in ways that can harm its developing nature. For example, continued exposure to high situations of stress, similar to that endured by food-insecure families, can alter a youthful child’s stress-response system, leading to heightened thrill, which increases the threat of stress-related diseases later in life.
All of us have a stake in whether children get a strong life. As a society, when we don’t nourish a child’s development, we all suffer the consequences. Numerous of the issues with which policymakers struggle, from educational achievement gaps to heightening difference, have their roots in how well a child is nourished and nurtured during the first few years of their life. Action to declined nutrition during the first 1000 days is critical to enabling children to reach their full experimental reality and securing a brighter future for us all.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
The first 1000 days of life- between a woman’s gestation and her child’s alternate birthday- is a unique period of occasion when the foundations for optimum health and development across the lifetime are established. The right nutrition and care during the 1000-day window influences not only whether the child will survive but also his or her capability to grow, learn, and rise out of poverty. Similarly, it contributes to society’s long-term health, stability, and substance. Children continue to die from preventable causes of death, including pneumonia, TB, and diarrhoea- all of which are caused by poor health-seeking behaviour, health care, contagious conditions, nutrition, and hygiene of the pregnant mama and child during the first 1000 days.
Roughly one-third of children under the age of 3 are stunted, a reflection of habitual malnutrition. The effects of malnourishment last a lifetime, leading to disabled brain development, lower Command of one’s body, weakened vulnerable systems, and lesser good conditions later in life. Children who were not properly nourished constantly have lower productivity and earn up to 20 percent less than average stipend as grown-ups. Malnourishment can reduce a country’s GDP by as much as three per cent.
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?
PROMOTING GOOD NUTRITION, HEALTH, AND SANITATION DURING THE FIRST 1000 DAYS OF LIFE
Reports demonstrate that it’s far more effective to support brain development in the first place by precluding nutritive poverties than to depend on relief remedy once a deficiency has passed. This requires advanced nutrition for adolescent girls and youthful women ahead, during and after pregnancy; scanning for TB and retention in care; exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of the child’s life; provision of nutritional, safe and applicable food for breastmilk as the baby grows; availability of safe drinking water; a better hygiene and sanitation practice; and regular monitoring to track growth and development.
Breastfeeding, in particular, is of critical significance. As a baby’s first vaccine, it’s the best protection they’ve against illness, discomfort, and death. Promoting, supporting, and protecting exclusive breastfeeding until six months impacts public health interventions. Children who are simply breastfed are 14 times more likely to survive the first six months of life than non-breastfed children. Simply handwashing with a cleanser alone prevents up to 50 percent of diarrhoea. 20 percent of stunting begins in the womb. Roughly 13 percent of children under 5 Years are fat or overweight, and 33 percent of children aged 1- 3 years are suppressed/ have lesser height (low height for age).
Diarrhoea is one of the five leading causes of death of young children. Roughly 30 percent of children from birth to age 4 live in homes that ran out of money to buy food, and nearly 40 percent of children don’t get all the initial important vaccinations. India’s under-five mortality rate has dropped and must be supported by regular growth monitoring, complete immunizations, and acceptable reciprocal feeding. Preventing diarrhoeal and respiratory ailments through handwashing with cleanser and screening internal stimulation through play and affection are also necessary for optimal child development up to age 2 and further.
HOW SHOULD IT BE DONE?
COMPREHENSIVE PACKAGE OF SERVICES FOR MOTHERS, BABIES, FAMILIES, AND CAREGIVERS
By adopting a comprehensive and multi-sectoral approach, benefactors and other developmental actors can help the Government to address all the aspects that hamper mothers and babies from receiving acceptable care and nutrition during the critical 1000 day period. This includes –
• Educating families and furnishing support to mothers for exclusive breastfeeding
• Spanning up child and youthful child feeding programmes
• Raising mindfulness on the significance of growth monitoring
• Expanding immunization content and uptake
• Training communities on the significance of handwashing with cleanser to help prevent illness
• Ensuring eligible homes admit their child to support subventions and have sufficient money to buy food
• New use of mobile health technology to deliver direct communication to parents and caregivers on their mobile phones, which educates them on the requirements of their babies and supports them to get the health care they need
Development actors like private sector actors, academia, civil society, and the media are also engaged to support the scale-up of programmes; raise mindfulness among families, conventions and seminaries; and strengthen the liaison within communities.
WHAT NEXT/ WAY FORWARD?
ADDRESSING GAPS AND ENSURING NO ONE IS LEFT BEHIND
India has made great progress towards improving the health and survival of mothers and babies across the country over the last two decades. Still, due to geographic differences, injuries, and inefficiencies in the functioning of the health system, certain points and communities remain underprivileged or underserved.
Through exploration and use of rearmost monitoring technologies, benefactors are supporting the Government to identify where and why there are gaps in knowledge, demand, access, and service delivery. This information is being used to target action and ensure the right interventions reach the right people, therefore making the best use of available resources. By building knowledge and capacity among all stakeholders and promoting quality service delivery for those who are most in need, benefactors are helping the Government to ensure no mothers and children are left behind.
PROMISING PRACTICES TO IMPROVE RESULTS ALONG THE FIRST 1000 DAYS
• Strengthening health systems by relating backups, prioritizing conduct and structure capacities at primary care and community situations- the 3 bases Approach in select sections has shown dramatic reductions in under- five child deaths and advancements in content and access to care.
• Improving liaison with early Childhood Development centres in communities with primary care conventions, including structure capacities of ECCD interpreters for growth monitoring, bettered hygiene practices, early identification of problems in children and referrals to watch.
• Structured capacities of frontline community health workers to support mothers and families for exclusive breastfeeding, bettered hygiene practices, early stimulation, and completing immunizations.
• Perfecting knowledge and demand for services with inventions that provide customized information to the mama/caregiver on all aspects of child health and development.
Children who get the right nutrition during the first 1000 days
• Are 10 times more likely to overcome the most life-changing child conditions
• Complete 4.6 further grades at the academy
• Go on to earn 21% more stipend as grown-ups
• Are more likely as grown-ups to have healthier families
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