38,000 of the some 500,000 children under five years old in Ho Chi Minh City suffer from chronic malnutrition, or stunted growth, health authorities reported. This accounts for 7.6 percent of the population of children under five. An additional 5.3 percent suffer from acute malnutrition, or underweight.

>> 3.2 mln Vietnamese children suffer from malnutrition

The figures were released by Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Thong, director of the HCMC Reproductive Health Care Center at a conference on malnutrition prevention and control held in the city Thursday morning. Although the rate of young children suffering from malnutrition in the city is lower than the country’s average,  12.9% is considered high, Dr Thong said. One cause of malnutrition in HCMC is the low rate of breast-fed children, despite government advertising efforts that proclaim the benefits of breastfeeding, he said. From January to September of this year, only 17 percent of children under 6 months of age were exclusively breast fed by their mothers. Last year, the rate was far lower, at less than 1 percent, and the rate of newborns breast-fed hours after birth was only 27 percent, down 5 percent from 2000 and equal to half of the country’s average rate.   Di Do Thi Ngoc Diep, director of the HCMC Nutrition Center, said 31 percent of primary school students are not fed with milk on a regular basis. Primary school students also eat fewer vegetables than recommended, with the intake of vegetables accounting for only 30 percent of the recommended volume. The intake of fruits meets only 50 percent of the recommended volume. An official from Pediatrics Hospital 1 reported that in the period from January to September, the hospital received 37,559 children who were examined and given nutrition consultations. Of these children, 7,489 or 16 percent suffered from mild malnutrition, while 18 percent of this group suffered from serious malnutrition.

Solutions In order to improve its children’s nutrition, HCMC has taken many measures, including providing information regarding foods of nutritional value to pregnant women and mothers of children under 2 years old.

The city has also carried out many programs to provide vitamins and other nutritious substances to infants and their mothers.  The HCMC Women’s Union has asked its units in all 24 districts to try to boost understanding on the nutritious value of breast milk and its great health benefits to newborns and infants. The union asked these units to set up clubs such as Breastfeeding Club, Anti-Malnutrition Club, etc. to help improve the health of both children and mothers and reduce the malnutrition rates among children in the city. The city’s Program of Malnutrition Prevention and Control has set its targets for 2014. They wish to keep the rate of children with malnutrition at under 8 percent, increase the rate of children fed with vitamins to 98 percent, and boost the rate of pregnant women fed with iron supplements to more than 80 percent, among other goals.