The 2010 earthquake in Haiti displaced about 1.5 million people, many of them into camps for internally displaced persons. It was expected that disruption of breastfeeding practices would lead to increased infant morbidity, malnutrition and mortality. Haiti's health ministry and the United Nations Children's Fund, in collaboration with local and international nongovernmental organizations, established baby tents in the areas affected by the earthquake. The tents provided a safe place for mothers to breastfeed and for non-breastfed infants to receive ready-to-use infant formula. Such a large and coordinated baby tent response in an emergency context had never been mounted before anywhere in the world. Baby tents were set up in five cities but mainly in Port-au-Prince, where the majority of Haiti's 1555 camps for displaced persons had been established. Between February 2010 and June 2012, 193 baby tents were set up; 180 499 mother-infant pairs and 52 503 pregnant women were registered in the baby tent programme. Of infants younger than 6 months, 70% were reported to be exclusively breastfed and 10% of the "mixed feeders" moved to exclusive breastfeeding while enrolled. In 2010, 13.5% of registered infants could not be breastfed. These infants received ready-to-use infant formula. Thanks to rapid programme scale-up, breastfeeding practices remained undisrupted. However, better evaluation methods and comprehensive guidance on the implementation and monitoring of baby tents are needed for future emergencies, along with a clear strategy for transitioning baby tent activities into facility and community programmes.

Background: The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend the inclusion of indicators of iron status and inf

Objective: To review the prevalence, severity and determinants of anaemia among women in West and Central Africa (WCA) and raise awareness among policy makers and programme planners in the region.Design: Systematic descriptive review of data in the public domain of the ORC Macro MEASURE Demographic and Health Surveys, national nutrition surveys, oral and technical communications at regional meetings, studies published in scientific journals, and WHO and UNICEF databases.Setting: West and Central Africa region.Subjects: Women of childbearing age.Results: The prevalence of anaemia among pregnant and non-pregnant women is higher than 50 % and 40 %, respectively, in all countries. Within countries, this prevalence varies by living setting (ruralv. urban), women's age and education. Across countries, socio-economic and climatic differences have no apparent association with the prevalence of anaemia among women. Several factors contribute either alone or jointly to the high rates of maternal anaemia in this region. These include widespread nutritional deficiencies; high incidence of infectious diseases; low access to and poor quality of health services; low literacy rates; ineffective design, implementation and evaluation of anaemia control programmes; and poverty.Conclusions: Addressing the multiple causes and minimizing the consequences of anaemia on maternal and child health and development in WCA require integrated multifactorial and multisectoral strategies. This also calls for unprecedented, historical and stronger political will and commitment that put adolescent girls and maternal health at the centre of the development agenda.

Undernutrition, a chief child killer in developing countries, has been a major public health problem in Haiti. Following the 2010 disasters (earthquake and cholera) and the intensive relief efforts to address them, we sought to determine the trends of child undernutrition in Haiti using data from the 2005–06 Haiti Demographic and Health Survey (HDHS) and from a Standardized Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transitions (SMART) survey in 2012. Growth data analyses included 2,463 (HDHS) and 4,727 (SMART) children ages 0–59 months. We calculated the prevalence of stunting, wasting, and underweight for each survey using World Health Organization 2006 growth standards. To account for sampling design, probability weights were applied to all analyses. Statistical significance was determined by non-overlapping confidence intervals around estimates. Stunting prevalence declined from 28.5% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 25.9, 31.3) in 2005-06 to 22.2% (95% CI = 20.2, 24.3) in 2012; wasting, from 10.1% (95% CI = 8.2, 12.7) to 4.3% (95% CI = 3.6, 5.2); and underweight, from 17.7 % (95% CI = 15.6, 20.1) to 10.5% (95% CI = 9.3, 11.9). Additionally, stunting declined more in rural areas, from 33.6% (95% CI = 30.1, 37.2) in 2005–06 to 25% (95% CI = 23.4, 26.7) in 2012, than in urban areas, from 18.6% (95% CI = 15.3, 22.5) in 2005–06 to 18.4% (95% CI = 16.7, 20.1) in 2012, for reasons that remain unknown. Results of the 2012 HDHS confirmed the observed trends. Thus, undernutrition among Haitian children under 5 declined significantly between 2005–06 and 2012. Our results should be interpreted in view of investments and changes that occurred in different sectors (within and outside health and nutrition) before and after the earthquake.

Between 1995 and 2012, many surveys including child and maternal nutrition indicators were conducted in Haiti. While many questions emerged from the results of those surveys, they have remained unanswered, in particular as they pertain to the determinants of poor children's and women's nutrition in Haiti. The purpose of this paper is to fill that gap and provide policymakers, program managers, and readers interested in nutrition issues in Haiti with information on (1) the trends and determinants of infant and young child feeding and food practices; (2) micronutrient deficiencies among children and women; (3) the status of severe acute malnutrition in children; (4) associations among women's empowerment, access to health care, water, and sanitation and child nutrition; (5) the current community‐based early child care and nutrition initiatives; and (6) the status of nutrition governance in the country. By looking at many sources of data, including previously published and new data, we provide insight into major predictors of child malnutrition and associations among child feeding practices, maternal nutrition, and child growth outcomes. We also show that important progress has been made recently in the governance of nutrition programs and in child and maternal nutrition indicators, a result of effective evidence‐based advocacy, partnerships, and design, implementation, and scale‐up of nutrition‐specific and sensitive interventions.

Relationships among Schistosoma haematobium, anemia, and iron deficiency have been documented, and all have been found to be associated with a decline in school attendance and lower performance. To assess the effect of single or combined iron and multiple micronutrients and/or praziquantel on school attendance and achievement in randomly selected 7- to 12-year-old anemic children with documented S. haematobium infection (n = 406) in Mali over a 3-month period. Schistosomiasis infection was diagnosed by the presence of schistosome eggs in the urine. Venous blood samples (5 mL) were drawn from an antecubital vein for hemoglobin assessment. Children were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups: praziquantel alone, praziquantel + iron, praziquantel + multiple micronutrients, and praziquantel + multiple micronutrients + iron. School attendance was defined by the number of days the child was absent from class. Achievement was defined by the child's overall school grades. Changes within treatment groups from baseline to the end of study were found for attendance (p < .001) but not for achievement (p > .05). Significant supplement treatments by age group interactions were found in 7- to 9-year-old children for attendance. Further exploration of treatment effects in this age group showed that only iron treatment's main effect was significant on attendance (p = .049) and was of borderline significance on school grades (p = .08). Combined praziquantel and iron treatment improved children's school attendance and performance better than praziquantel alone, particularly among younger children.