Vitamin Angels Supports Maternal and Child Health in Mexico

Reaching Women and Children From Rural and Low-Income Urban Communities

Mexico faces a high prevalence of undernutrition and micronutrient deficiency. These burdens are felt deeply in the highlands, where health services are inaccessible to many, leaving nutritionally vulnerable populations, including women and young children, at higher risk of complications and poor health outcomes. 

Across Mexico, and particularly in rural areas, there are gaps in the health system when it comes to integrated, high-quality nutrition services. To improve nutrition among pregnant women, young children, and infants, coordinated implementation strategies and nutrition capacity building among healthcare providers are required.

Food insecurity and micronutrient-poor diets are two significant public health challenges in Mexico. The government is working to develop food and nutrition programs that prioritize multisectoral collaboration to deliver sustainable solutions.

Vitamin Angels partners with the federal government, local health authorities, NGOs, and academic institutions to ensure the effective, sustainable scale-up of high-impact nutrition interventions like multiple micronutrient supplements (MMS), complementary feeding support, and vitamin A supplementation and deworming treatment, as a continuum of care from pregnancy through age five.

Improving Complementary Feeding Practices

In Oaxaca, many communities are located in rural, hard-to-reach areas and there is a large population of indigenous people who have been historically marginalized. This contributes to food insecurity, lack of access to quality health services, and higher rates of chronic malnutrition compared to other parts of Mexico. As a result, many children do not receive the nutrients needed to support their growth in the early stages of life.

In our data reviews, Vitamin Angels found a lack of information on how children are fed in Oaxaca, especially the micronutrient quality of their diets. Along with our research partners, we conducted a study to understand feeding practices for children aged 6-23 months, when diet quality is critical to optimizing growth and preventing illness. 

OUR FINDINGS

Our study revealed that overall, children in Oaxaca were not consuming adequate diets. We found that:

• Many children’s diets consisted largely of “calditos,” or low-nutrient-density, water-based broths. 
• Very few protein-rich, animal-based foods were provided, especially to children aged 6-11 months. 
• Mothers experienced many challenges – particularly lack of time and purchasing power – in feeding their children optimally.
• Healthcare providers were not well-equipped to provide counseling to mothers on complementary feeding, and lacked training and support tools to provide quality nutrition services.

NEXT STEPS

With these results, Vitamin Angels is designing a strategy to improve complementary feeding practices across Oaxaca. Together with government health authorities, research institutions, and NGO partners, our multi-pronged approach aims to improve the quality of counseling services provided by health workers in facilities and through community activities as well as to reach mothers through digital messages on complementary feeding. A rigorous monitoring and evaluation strategy will document the process and key outcomes, and findings will be used to scale up these approaches in other states across Mexico.

Supporting Healthy Pregnancies and Breastfeeding Practices Through Implementation Science and Advocacy

Vitamin Angels works to provide mothers, young children, and babies across Mexico with cost-effective, high-impact nutrition interventions. 

SCALING UP MMS

Across 25 states, Vitamin Angels is expanding the reach of MMS to pregnant mothers to support healthier pregnancies and improved birth outcomes. Ongoing implementation science projects support the scale-up of MMS nationally. Vitamin Angels works closely with research institutions to provide assistance and with our partners to advocate for nationwide scale up of MMS.

With this data and initial research findings, the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico (INSP), UNICEF, and other partners are advocating for MMS programming and additional funding for implementation research.

SUPPORTING BREASTFEEDING

In Mexico, many barriers – including lack of institutional and health systems support – prevent mothers from achieving optimal breastfeeding practices. Vitamin Angels supported research to understand the support provided for breastfeeding and influences on breastfeeding practices from birth through four months postpartum at two hospitals in the Yucatan state.

As a follow up to this research, a team of stakeholders from Vitamin Angels, academia, the INSP, and the Ministry of Health in Yucatan are collaborating to identify opportunities and strategies to strengthen breastfeeding services in hospitals during birth and the early postpartum period.

Our Future

Vitamin Angels looks forward to continuing our support of nutrition services and implementation research across Mexico. 

To achieve this, we will:

• Partner with research institutions and NGOs to further explore how we can design nutrition interventions to have the biggest impact on communities.
• Work closely with our partners to support and scale nutrition interventions within underserved communities.
• Conduct advocacy with key stakeholders to prioritize high-impact nutrition interventions and apply implementation science to improve program quality.
• Expand our programs to help all mothers give their babies the nutrition they need.