A mother's struggle to feed her children

Crowds of mothers with their small babies sit quietly on the front steps of the small and basic health centre in Edo, Wolayita.

For clinic workers and Concern staff, today has been slightly quieter than previous days in the last month. Yet by 4pm there are still at least 50 women sitting outside cradling their children waiting to be examined.

Among the throng, Aynate Desta sits holding her fragile-looking baby son Abebe. Her seven year old daughter carries his twin sister, Pseyhay. Although the twins are the size of newborns their mother insists they are almost twelve months old. “Life has been miserable for us,” explains Aynate. “My babies are malnourished because I cannot breastfeed them anymore. I have nothing to eat myself and am hungry, like the rest of my family. I worry that we will starve. We have had no rains and because of that have had nothing to harvest. It is like that for my neighbours too.”

Aynate walked for 30 minutes to take her children to the Aedo health clinic in the Wolayita region of southern Ethiopia. Her 10-year-old daughter had stayed at home to care for her ill husband.

"The father of the children is very sick," she continues. "We have no food at all. His problem started with malaria, then he got different diseases, and he became chronically ill. "Life has been miserable."

Life saving treatment

Soon a nurse motions to Aynate that they are ready to examine her children. Both babies are weighed and their arm measurements recorded as 9.5 centimetres, the same measurement as a healthy child at birth. Children have to weigh less than 70% of their expected bodyweight to be admitted to the nutrition programme. The twins are immediately registered.

Clinic staff quickly set about giving out rations of ‘plumpynut’. These silver sachets of peanut paste contain enough nutrients and calories to have a child back to its normal weight and health within six to eight weeks. The outpatient therapeutic clinic is similar to many in the area run by the Ministry of Health and supported by Concern Worldwide. 20 kilos (44lb) of this food supplement costs just 5 euro (£3.97) a kilo and is enough to bring a child back to desired weight.  

Mothers are given enough of a supply to feed their child at home for one to two weeks until they return to the clinic for their next check-up. It means that mothers like Aynate can return home and continue to care for the rest of their children as well as the weakest.

Increasing malnutrition

Scenes like this have been repeated over the past three months as Abraham Asha, who is responsible for Concern Worldwide’s programmes in Wolayita, explains. “In the last three months we have seen more children admitted to the nutrition programme than in the last three years. Some days 40 to 50 children are admitted and everyone is struggling to keep up with this alarming rate. The health staff and Concern’s staff are doing their best to help as many people as we can, but this will continue to be a problem across Wollayita for many months.”

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