Hunger

A couple weeks ago I posted about Malnutrition and the effects it has on children.  Today I wanted to share a few stories regarding hunger::

It's 9:00am and breakfast is being served at preschool.  The children are sitting and eating around a table engaging in conversation with their peers and teachers.  Out of twenty 3&4 year olds, four of them have not eaten since yesterday's snack at preschool which was at 3:00pm.  How do they cope?  They eat a lot while they are at preschool and their teacher allows them to eat as much as they want.  When we can, we send food home with them, in hopes that they will have something more to eat and other family members will not take it from them.

In her younger years, she never knew when her next meal would come.  In response, she learned to horde food, to take more than she needed, to hide it in her pockets, to shove it under her pillow, and do whatever it took to insure one more meal.  Now, as a well fed young adult, she can't stop the compulsion to take food, to hide food, to horde food, to buy or make extremely more than is needed regardless of the cost.  She doesn't fit in.  She feels awkward, but she can't let go.  One may say she has overcome her childhood as she has become successful and is able to afford even the finest restaurants in town, but her emotional state has not changed with her physical successes.

Many have heard of the devastation and tragedy in the Phillipines as the worst storm swept through.  Thousands of people were killed, and those who were not are suffering.  This natural disaster has left them without power, shelter, food,clothing, money, and even friends and family.  They are overwhelmed with confusion, heartbreak, and are not sure what moving on means.  Relief efforts have provided food and water, shelter materials, medicine, clothes, and other relief aids.  Through the efforts of many individuals and combined efforts of organizations and worldwide government assistance programs many are being treated, but this does not mean hunger has subsided, that disease is not spreading, that shelter is adequate, that violent outbreaks don't continue, and that support systems from family and friends have been restored.  How do they cope with these stressors?  How will this affect the young children who have survived in the long run?  While there is much we are all doing to help minimize the effects, the reality of the situation still lies heavy on the minds, hearts, and souls of so many.

Read more from:
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/11/10/philippines_destruction_a_great_human_tragedy_as_more_than_10000_feared_killed.html
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/11/11/philippines-haiyan-recovery/3494327/
http://thefaceofhunger.stophungernow.org/
http://lightbox.time.com/2013/11/19/seven-days-of-tragedy-photographer-recounts-covering-typhoon-haiyan-for-time/#1

The list goes on ...  Natural disasters and relief efforts have been going on for years.  The effects and stressors on an individual and family can go on for years as well.

NAEYC

Ready for a week of learning at NAEYC conference in DC. So excited

Malnutrition

Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs places physiological needs, that of food, water, shelter, clothing, adequate sleep, etc, as the basis for all growth, development, and motivation.  Above anything else, these basic things are needed before a child can be ready to grow and learn.  Yet many children all over the world are not receiving these basic needs.

I work with many children who experience hunger because of their situation in poverty.  Our center strives to provide them with healthy meals and proper nutrition to sustain good health that is optimal for learning.  All over the world, hunger and malnutrition are even a more severe problem than those I currently work with.

Malnutrition is evident in roughly 1/3 of the children in developing nations (Berger, 2012).  Infants and children who are chronically malnourished may suffer in these three ways: (Berger, 2012, p.156)

1. Their brains may not develop normally.
2. No body reserves to protect them against common diseases.  About half of all childhood deaths occur because malnutrition makes a childhood disease lethal.
3. Some diseases result directly from malnutrition.

Read these sad facts below on hunger from http://www.stophungernow.org/hunger-facts

Facts on Hunger

• Hunger is defined as a feeling of discomfort or weakness caused by lack of food, coupled with the desire to eat. Oxford Dictionary, 2013
• Malnutrition is defined as a lack of proper nutrition, caused by not having enough to eat, not eating enough of the right things, or being unable to use the food that one does eat. Oxford Dictionary, 2013
• Undernutrition contributes to 2.6 million deaths of children under five each year - one third of the global total. UNICEF, 2011
• Nearly 870 million people, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012.  FAO, 2012
• Undernourishment kills more people every year than malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS combined.  USAID, 2012
• In 2011, 1 in 6 children were estimated to be underweight in developing countries with most (56 million) living in South-central Asia.  WHO, 2011
• Almost 1 billion people across the globe will go to bed hungry tonight, 200 million of them children. USAID, 2013
• The proportion of children under 5 years old in developing countries who were underweight is estimated to have declined only 11% between 1990 and 2010 from 29% to 18%.  This rate of progress is insufficient to meet the MDG target of halving 1990 levels of underweight by 2015.  WHO, 2011

Facts on School Feeding and Education

• There are 66 million primary school-age children who attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone. WFP, 2012
• There are 67 million school-age children who do not attend school. Poor households must often choose between sending their children to school or to work the fields. WFP, 2012
• Research shows that providing in-school meals, mid-morning snacks, and take-home rations through school feeding programs can alleviate short-term hunger, increase children’s abilities to concentrate, learn, perform specific tasks, and has been linked to an increase in the enrolment of girls. World Bank, 2013
• As of 2012, 31 million primary-school pupils worldwide dropped out of school. UNESCO, 2012
• Educated girls are likely to marry later and have fewer children, who in turn will be more likely to survive and be better nourished and educated. UNICEF, 2012
• When a girl in a developing country receives 7 years of education she marries 4 years later and has 2.2 fewer children. Girl Effect, 2013
• Undernutrition during the critical 1,000 days from pregnancy to a child’s second birthday can cause irreversible stunting and mental impairment. USAID, 2013
• Secondary school completion rates for adolescent girls is below five percent in nineteen sub-Saharan African countries. Girl Effect, 2013
• A person’s earnings increase by 10 percent with each year of school they complete. USAID, 2013
• Increasing the average level of higher education in a country by just one year can add half a percentage point of growth to GDP. UNICEF, 2012

As an early childhood educator, I understand the importance of good health and nutrition and the role it plays in a child being able to learn.  Proper nutrition doesn't just start after birth, but begins when a woman is pregnant and providing the nutrients needed for a proper start in life.  Then, as a child needs to grow, physically, emotionally, cognitively, they need to be properly nourished to learn.  I have joined some organizations where I can begin to track the needs of early education and nutrition in other countries so I can determine how I can make a difference in the lives of children all over the world.

Child Birth

When July 15th came and past, the due date for my son, I wondered what I should do next and when my baby would be born.  I was tired and hot and ready to be finished being pregnant.  Days soon turned in to weeks and still no sign of labor.  My appointments to the doctor showed that we were both doing well, but no one would know when he would come.  Finally, I was scheduled to be induced on August 1st.  I arrived at the hospital early in the morning, at 5:00am, just to learn that they had too many births the night before and didn't have any room for me.  They sent me home and indicated they would call me when there was space.  They called me shortly after 7:00am and I was set up in a hospital bed with pitocin started by 8:00am.  Everything seemed to happen quickly after that.  I laid in bed while they monitored the baby's vitals and my contractions.  They started an epidural to comfort me through the contractions and promised that it would wear off before it was time to give birth.  I even fell asleep for some time.  A few minutes before 2:00pm they were telling me to bear down and push, but I still had very little feeling from the epidural.  But I did as I was asked, pushed from my laying position with my knees up and hoped that all went well.  Within minutes my son was born.  Nurses swept him away to run tests on him and then brought him to me when they were certain he was well.

I was fortunate to have trained specialists who worked with me and a hospital room that was prepared for the birth of my baby, even though the initial circumstances were not what I had in mind.  In other parts of the world, especially poorer nations, most births happen at home and many times without the help of medical specialist (Berger, 2012, et al).  A story of a birth in Ghana describes the pregnant women as laying curled on the floor in the corner of a dark and hot hut, in labor and going through contractions without making a single sound.  There is a midwife present as well, quiet in another corner of the hut waiting.  A soft sound from the mother and her body positioning moving into a squatting position gave cue to the midwife that she was ready to have the child.  Still with no words or sounds exchanged, the midwife moves over, helps to support the birthing mother's back and catches the baby upon birth.  The baby then is immediately placed in the arms of the mother, a "gentle birth" as it is called.  This may be typical for women in Ghana, however the mortality rate is at least ten times higher than in North America.

Does the gentleness of one birth compared to another have an impact of future child development?  Does the use of medications, such as pitocin have an impact on the development of this child in the future?  Is it less stressful on the unborn child to have the mother relaxed and resting, even if under medication, during those last few hours before birth compared to the pregnant mother who is curled up in pain?   And what about the quietness of birth compared to the women who are loud and screaming as the child journey's through the birth canal?  Does any of this make any difference at all in the long run of the child's health, growth, and development?

Reference:  Berger, K. S. (2012). The developing person through childhood (6th ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers