Routine Weighing Children's Weight, Early Detection Efforts for Malnutrition

Weight gain according to growth chart is one of the parameters of the nutritional status and health of your baby. Monitoring your child's weight can be the first step to detect early problems of malnutrition, so it is not too late to get the right treatment. Less weight in your baby occurs when weight is below average compared to height and age. This is a sign that your child is experiencing malnutrition. These conditions can adversely affect the immune system, so that your child is prone to infectious diseases, and can experience growth and development disorders in the future, lack of energy or feel tired quickly, the risk of more fragile bones, to disorders of fertility.

Benefits of Weighing Child's Weight Regularly

Monitoring your child's weight is very important to do to:

• Detecting disorders and deviations of child development from an early age in order to get follow-up quickly and accurately.
• Prevent malnutrition or poor nutrition in children.
• To find out whether toddlers grow up healthy.
• To find out the completeness of the immunization.
• Get nutrition counseling.

To monitor the nutritional status and growth rate of children, parents need to weigh their baby every month. Now in Posyandu monitoring is used through the Card to Health (KMS). At Posyandu, children will also get vitamin A capsules, immunizations, health checks, and stimulation of the growth and development of your child. Every child must have a KMS to monitor his growth. Every time a child's weight is weighed it must be marked with a point on the KMS and each point connected to form a line that shows the condition of the growth of the Little One. If the rising line follows the growth line, then the child's growth is good. If the line is flat or even decreases, it means that the child must get further treatment by the puskesmas or doctor. Every month your baby's body weight must increase along the growth line, if it does not increase two months in a row, it means that your baby may experience growth disorders and you need to be aware of the causative factors and their adverse effects on your health.

Tips to Increase Child Weight

Mother can also do simple steps to overcome underweight in Little One.

• Increase calorie intake

The key to increasing a child's weight is to adopt a balanced diet. Then, if the child has started eating solid foods, provide carbohydrate and protein intake to increase calorie intake. As a source of carbohydrates, provide rice, potatoes, whole wheat bread, or whole wheat products. For protein, choose fish, chicken, eggs, meat, and beans. Give vegetables and fruit every day, especially fruits that contain calories such as bananas and avocados. Keep in mind, increasing calorie intake does not mean giving children sweet or fatty foods.

• Complement with milk products

The best nutrition can be started by giving breast milk (ASI) from the beginning of birth. After the age of 6 months, Mother can continue breastfeeding coupled with complementary feeding (MPASI). In your little one who is underweight, there is a possibility that the doctor will recommend milk with calories and specially formulated nutrients. It is recommended to keep limiting drinks with high sugar content, including instant juice. Because, it is possible to damage teeth.

• Providing supplements

Giving iron supplements can be an effort to increase body weight. In addition, other additional supplements needed by children who are underweight are vitamins A, C and D. However, the provision of supplements of this substance should be after consulting a doctor. Excessive iron can cause constipation or difficult bowel movements and reduce the body's ability to absorb other minerals. The good news, this additional nutritional intake is usually contained in formula milk that you can give to your child.

Consult the following ways of providing nutrition with balanced sources of nutrition for children with a doctor or nutritionist. If you feel your child has underweight or abnormal growth and development, it is advisable to immediately consult a doctor or nutritionist to find out the causes and treatments needed. Although it seems trivial, but routinely weighing a child's weight and checking his condition to the doctor is an important step to ensure your child does not experience malnutrition.