Integrating Family Planning Messages into Maternal, Infant, and Young Child Nutrition Counseling CardsAn example from the Infant & Young Child Nutrition Project in Ethiopia

Stephanie MartinProgram Officer Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition

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IYCN in Ethiopia

Project objectives• Increased community and

household support for optimal nutrition behaviors

• Improved provider performance

• Improved enabling environment for nutrition service provision in the context of HIV

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Counseling cards development process

• Conducted literature review, materials inventory, and service provision assessment

• Facilitated message and materials workshop with key stakeholders

• Designed and pretested counseling cards

Training and dissemination

• Developed training manual on MIYCN counseling

• Trained more than 300 health workers plus TOTs

• Disseminated 4,300 sets in Amharic, Oromo, and Tigrigna

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Examples of message integration

04/15/23Page 5PATH/Evelyn Hockstein

Exclusive breastfeeding

• When you exclusively breastfeed your baby during the first 6 months and have no menses, you are practicing a family planning method called LAM. LAM no longer protects against pregnancy when even one of those conditions change. Ask your health worker for information about other family planning methods.

Postnatal care

• It is important to think about family planning options in order to have time for you and your baby to be healthy and grow strong. Healthy timing and spacing of pregnancy means waiting at least 2 to 3 years before becoming pregnant again… and allows you and your baby enough time to grow strong and healthy before becoming pregnant again too soon.

Appropriate complementary foods

• Remember when you introduce complementary foods to your baby at 6 months, you are no longer practicing LAM. You will need to use another family planning method even if your menses have not returned. By avoiding another pregnancy too soon, you can help your baby grow strong.

Next steps

• Counseling cards are currently being reprinted in all three languages by the new nutrition bilateral in Ethiopia

• MIYCN-FP Integration Working Group is developing guidance on integrating messages that will be available on the K4H Toolkit

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Acknowledgments

• IYCN Ethiopia:• Dr. Belaynesh Yifru Mulugeta, former IYCN Ethiopia Country Coordinator• Zemene Mengistie, former IYCN Senior Nutrition Advisor

The counseling cards, training manual, and other nutrition resources are available from www.iycn.org/Ethiopia

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) funded these activities under the terms of Cooperative Agreement No. GPO-A-00-06-00008-00.