Where He leads...: CNP Success Story!

CNP Success Story!

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Marie Ange is a mother of 5—yes 5!—and her life and the lives of her children were transformed after learning about the Children's Nutrition Program of Haiti.

During her last pregnancy in 2012, Marie Ange found out about CNP’s Supplementary Food Program for Woman (“PNS Fanm”). She had heard about mothers in her community taking their children to our nutrition program, but this is the first she had heard of a program for pregnant women. Her friend told her that all pregnant women should go to our clinic for a general check-up and nutrition screening. Although she assumed her health was fine, she decided to go by our clinic as her friend suggested. To her surprise, her blood pressure was low and her weight was substandard. She was identified as moderately malnourished and immediately entered into the PNS Fanm program.

On the first day of eating Plumpy ‘Sup she recalls an immediate change in her energy level. Over the next few weeks she started gaining weight at a healthy rate and was better able to care for her other four children. On December 23, 2012 she was discharged from our program six days before giving birth to her beautiful baby boy.

While in our program she recalls learning a great deal. She learned what foods contained what nutritional content and how to prepare meals that kept her body nourished. Another fact that our nutrition worker drilled into her was the importance of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of her baby’s life. “I had heard this before but I had never given it any weight. It wasn’t until I kept hearing it from Kore Timoun again and again that I started to believe it.” Up until this point, she had never really understood the message of exclusive breastfeeding. She never thought her body produced enough breast milk to solely feed her other children in this manner so she would buy extra food and water for them. She recalls the difficulty of being able to afford feeding her children during those first crucial months. For her fifth child, thanks to the education provided by CNP, she finally realized and put into practice exclusive breastfeeding and indeed, she had plenty of milk for her baby. This was also helped by the fact that she herself had been healthy throughout the second half of her pregnancy from the treatment she received in our PNS Fanm program.

To her delight, her newborn is the healthiest of all her children. She says she can see a big difference between this baby and the rest of her children. She continues to have enough milk and realizes how economical exclusive breastfeeding has turned out to be.

In February she attended a Ti Fwaye (Hearth session) and has learned even more about cooking nutritional and affordable meals for her family and the importance of maintaining a sanitary home.

We are thankful, encouraged, and motivated to continue because of stories like Marie Ange’s!