The Micro-Miracles for a Powered Beginning

NOAKHALI, Bangladesh - Rokeya Begum sits on the edge of the bed, cradling her daughter Arohi as the baby ‘fusses’ and turns her face away from the food. At one year old, Arohi is just at the right age to eat solid foods alongside breastmilk, but no matter what Rokeya tries - mashed rice, a spoonful of dal, or some bites of sweet banana - Arohi refuses to eat. What worries Rokeya even more is that her breastmilk is running low.

"Since the floods, we have had so many expenses. I am not eating much myself, so my breastmilk has reduced. Sometimes, the baby bites my breast to find more milk," Rokeya says quietly. "I have tried to feed her other foods like rice and dal, but she doesn’t want to eat them." 

When the historic floods swept through her village about six months ago, Rokeya was on her own with three children, with her husband thousands of miles away as a migrant worker. To add to her situation, her mud stove was flooded and the local market barely had groceries. Such scarcity prevented Rokeya from cooking for almost a month and from providing Arohi with breastmilk, essential for healthy development.

"I feel sad when people say my baby doesn’t look as healthy as I do," Rokeya adds. "Just a few days ago, Arohi also had diarrhea."

Still, Rokeya believed Arohi is healthy, just like any other child. It wasn’t until Shahin Akter - a UNICEF-supported Community Nutrition Volunteer, visited her home recently and measured Arohi’s arm with a special tape that Rokeya learned that her baby is already malnourished.

In another village, a simple sachet in time

Just 20 kilometers from Rokeya’s home in Noakhali, Sabina Yasmin tears open a thin sachet. Her 10-month-old daughter, Aksha, watches closely with wide eyes, chubby fingers reaching for the sachet as if it were a treat. The peanut butter-like paste, made from a blend of nuts, oil, milk, sugar, vitamins and minerals, has become a reassuring part of the child’s daily feeding routine. 

Like Rokeya, Sabina’s family was hit hard by the floods. She, too, is raising two children on her own while her husband works abroad. And like Rokeya, for her, nutritious food also became scarce. For a month after the disaster, Sabina and her daughters stayed with relatives, eating what little they could find, mostly rice and potatoes.

“Food in the market was scarce, and prices were high. Everyone was depending on relief,” Sabina recalls. “I wasn’t eating well, so I had trouble breastfeeding. It made me feel terrible. It hurt that I couldn’t feed my baby the way I wanted to.”

But one thing was different.

A UNICEF-trained Community Nutrition Volunteer named Jannatul Ferdous, who was also Sabina’s neighbor, visited just in time. Jannatul was among almost 80 volunteers on the frontline of a UNICEF-supported pilot project to prevent malnutrition among about 10,000 children between 6 to 11 months in Feni and Noakhali.

“I’ve known the mother as my neighbor for 22 years,” Jannatul says. “When I arrived, the house was in ruins. Everything was in a mess. The family’s situation was really vulnerable.”

Jannatul measured Aksha’s upper arm while listening carefully to Sabina’s struggles. It was clear that even though the baby wasn’t malnourished yet, she would be at risk if conditions didn’t improve. Jannatul introduced her to a simple but powerful solution offered for free thanks to UNICEF support: a small sachet of ready-to-eat nutrition paste, known as small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements, or SQ-LNS. This paste helps fill nutritional gaps and protects children like Aksha from slipping into malnutrition, without substituting for breastfeeding or a diverse diet.

“She told me one sachet, when mixed with daily foods like rice and fish, could give my baby part of the daily nutrition she needs,” Sabina says. “Because she’s my neighbor, I trusted her.”

The first-of-its-kind rollout

Since last December, Sabina has been bringing Aksha to the nearby UNICEF-supported health clinic every month to provide Aksha a health checkup and nutritional counselling. During the session, Panna Akter, the Community Health Care Provider, measures and records her weight and height and distributes the SQ-LNS sachets.

The results are visible: within four months, the little girl has gained 1.5 kilograms.

“She is more playful and happier. She likes the taste of it,” Sabina smiles. “I want to thank UNICEF for arranging this because the sachet has given my baby the nutrition of half a bowl of khitchuri!1”

Aksha is not alone. Others in the area are also benefiting from the sachets.

“The results have been encouraging,” Panna says. “Parents are coming back regularly, and even families who weren’t registered before are now showing up to receive the SQ-LNS sachets.”

For families like Sabina’s, this rapid, first-of-its-kind rollout of the SQ-LNS programme in Bangladesh is making a difference - the difference between a child falling into malnutrition and one growing up healthy. Between a delayed start and a future where they can live healthy lives and thrive to their full potential.

Just ten cents a day

Back in her home, Rokeya watches Arohi sleep, hoping her daughter will have a stronger appetite in the days ahead. She wishes she had known earlier about the sachets that have helped children like Aksha stay healthy.

In a country prone to climate shocks and disasters, investing in child nutrition is a powerful tool to secure a stronger and healthier Bangladesh. A small investment – just 10 USD cents a day - can provide a child with SQ-LNS supplements. It’s a low-cost solution with lifelong returns, not only for each child but for the country’s human capital development.

For Arohi, it may have been delayed. But for thousands of other children, it doesn’t have to.

Now is the time to scale up - to reach every child, just as we reached Aksha, before it’s too late.