Rosa is suffering from malnutrition and is far below the average height for her age and weight for age. Her family is extremely poor – her mother works embroidering blouses and selling them at market, but her father is an alcoholic and so he spends most of the little money her mother earns on alcohol. This has created a very difficult situation for Rosa’s mother who is spread thin both energetically and economically, trying to care for Rosa and her siblings (ages 4 years old and 2 years old). At the moment Rosa’s diet is all liquid – breast milk and coffee. She has not received any solid food partly because her mother was unaware that it is important to start introducing solid food at 6-months and does not have much money to buy enough food for her husband, children and herself. Rosa is already showing developmental delays - at 7 months she cannot yet sit on her own.
Rosa lives in an adobe mud house with her mother and siblings. Her father lives there too, but as an alcoholic he often sleep in the streets.
This treatment will supply Rosa with the growth monitoring, micronutrient and food supplementation, and medication for her to recoup some of the weight and height she has lost, and increase her overall caloric intake. Her mother will receive intensive nutrition education thus building her confidence and ability to care for Rosa and her other children throughout their childhood. Intervention now will prevent the future devastating effects of malnutrition, and give Rosa the chance to live a healthy productive life.
