CDGP/WINNN Maternal Nutrition Package Development Consultants at Save the Children Nigeria

Save the Children is the leading independent organization for children in need, with programs in over 120 countries, including the United States. We aim to inspire breakthroughs in the way the world treats children, and to achieve immediate and lasting change in their lives by improving their health, education and economic opportunities. In times of acute crisis, we mobilize rapid assistance to help children recover from the effects of war, conflict and natural disasters. Each year, we and our partners reach millions of children in communities around the world. Join our dedicated and diverse staff in their work to improve the well-being of children everywhere.

We are recruiting to fill the vacant position below:

Job Title: CDGP/WINNN Maternal Nutrition Package Development Consultant

Location: Abuja, Nigeria

Introduction

• The nutritional status of women when becoming pregnant and during pregnancy can have significant influence on both fetal, infant and maternal health outcomes. Micronutrient deficiencies (Hidden Hunger)  such as calcium, iron, vitamin A and iodine can lead to poor maternal health outcomes and pregnancy complications which put the mother and baby at risk. Poor maternal weight gain in pregnancy due to an inadequate diet, increases the risk of premature delivery, low birthweight and birth defects.
• Nutrition education and counselling seek to improve nutrition practices before and during pregnancy to improve maternal nutrition and reduce the risk of poor health outcomes in both mothers and their children. Nutrition education and counselling focus on enhancing the quality of the diet, by educating women on which foods and what quantities they need to consume in order to achieve optimal dietary intake. This can also include counselling on the use of micronutrient supplements recommended during pregnancy, such as multiple micronutrient supplements containing iron and folic acid.

Project Background:

• Every single day, Nigeria loses about 2,300 under-five year olds and 145 women of childbearing age. Nigeria is the country with the 3rd highest absolute number of children who are stunted, recent studies show that 41% of children under the age of five are stunted, 23% are underweight, and 14% are wasted.2 14% of infants are born with a low birth weight.
• Working to Improve Nutrition in Northern Nigeria (WINNN) is a 6-year project funded by DFID, which started in September 2011. The overall objective of the project is to reduce mortality through decreasing the incidence and prevalence of under nutrition in Nigeria with focus on Jigawa, Katsina, Kebbi, Yobe and Zamfara States. The programme is implemented by a partnership that includes UNICEF, Save the Children and Action against Hunger (ACF).
• The overall object of the WINNN programme is to build the capacity of the state and LGAs to implement nutrition interventions as routine services through existing PHC structures and to use evidence-based advocacy to improve political commitment to and government funding for nutrition interventions.
• WINNN aims to improve maternal and child nutrition in Northern Nigerian through support to primary health care service providers for the implementation nutrition interventions as routine services through existing PHC structures, funded by the Government of Nigeria.  Behaviour change communication (BCC), outreach and counselling are key activities for the project under the IYCF output.
• WINNN’s IYCF intervention promotes early initiation and exclusive breastfeeding for new-borns and infants, continued breastfeeding for at least 2 years and optimal complementary feeding practices for young children. It targets the first 1,000 days, from conception to two years of age, which provides a window of opportunity to prevent child deaths and ensure healthy growth and brain development.

Justification:

• Researchers have identified the first 1,000 days of a child’s life - from pregnancy through a child’s 2nd birthday - as a critical window of time that sets the stage for a person’s intellectual development and lifelong health.  It is a period of enormous potential, but also of enormous vulnerability. Malnutrition is responsible for almost half of all deaths of children under age 5; virtually all of these deaths are preventable. Nearly 170 million children have had the growth of their young bodies and brains stunted by chronic malnutrition.
• It has been proven that malnutrition begins during pregnancy and thus nutrition of the mother during pregnancy and in the first years of a child’s life provides the essential building blocks for brain development, healthy growth and a strong immune system. A growing body of scientific evidence shows that the foundations of a person’s lifelong health - including their predisposition to obesity and certain chronic diseases - are largely set during this 1,000 day window. Malnutrition early in life can cause irreversible damage to children’s brain development and their physical growth, leading to a diminished capacity to learn, poorer performance in school, greater susceptibility to infection and disease and a lifetime of lost earning potential. It can even put them at increased risk of developing illnesses like heart disease, diabetes and certain types of cancers later in life.
• The WINNN and CDGP programmes under its IYCF intervention focuses on this first 1,000 days of life and the proposed consultancy to develop a comprehensive Maternal Nutrition package is to further strengthen the Facility IYCF components of the programmes focusing primarily on the pregnant and lactating mothers.

Specific Objectives
Objective 1: Development of a Maternal Nutrition Package:

• Facilitation of Maternal Nutrition workshop for SCI Nutrition team
  • Development of training materials, agenda and presentation
• Facilitation of National and Regional Maternal Recipe Development workshop
  • Review of exiting recipes
  • Testing of recipes with selected 1,000 days mothers in 2 communities in 2 states
  • Review of existing recipe books and materials 1,000 days mothers (National & International)
  • Pre-test of materials during FGDs with 1,000 days mothers for their insight on graphics and step by step cooking process typical to their villages or communities (National Consultant)
• Development of Material Nutrition Food demonstration manual for trainers
• Development of costed Maternal Recipes cards and nutritional content
• Development of pictorial Maternal recipe cards for use in Northern Nigeria
• Development of SOP for Maternal Food demonstrations

Objective 2:  Support the production of Maternal Nutrition Food demonstration videos:

• SBCC training for WINNN team and a local production team on producing videos for maternal  recipes
• Development of a step by step cooking process for video production which will include but not limited to the steps of  process preparation of the dish combining important WASH elements
• Development of a video scrip based on the Maternal Nutrition Package for the food demonstration video recording

Objective 3 - Review and standardization of complimentary feeding manuals for children 6-24 months to include cost of diet