Peto, Yucatán, (June 23, 2021).- Mrs. Wendy Borges Yupit and her one-year-old daughter Emily live in a house surrounded by fruit and citrus trees, which she has taken advantage of to offer her little girl a healthy diet thanks to the guidance messages she receives as part of the MHealth Nutres pilot program, promoted by Governor Mauricio Vila Dosal, through the System for the Integral Development of the Family (DIF) Yucatán, in coordination with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).
“The messages they send me have been very useful, especially because they tell me what I can use to feed my daughter according to her age. Little by little, I have begun to give her the fruits that we harvest here at home and now I know that it is good for his health ”, assured the woman in her home in Peto, during the visit made by Juan Barea Canul, in charge of the Directorate of DIF Yucatán, and Mauro Brero, director of the Nutrition area of Unicef Mexico.
“Thanks to the alliance we are making with Unicef, we are strengthening our actions so that Yucatecans and Yucatecans have a better quality of life through good nutrition,” said Barea Canul before Delhi Trejo Hernández and Matthias Sachse, Nutrition officials of the representation of the international organization in the country.
Through this scheme, the cell phones of 201 beneficiaries of the Food Assistance Program in the First Thousand Days of Life, belonging to 42 municipalities, receive personalized, useful, timely, and practical information on care following the stage of pregnancy or the period of pregnancy and growth of infants.
Thanks to the above, María Valentina Sosa Chan has been able to give better use to the products in the food package she receives for her son Santiago. “The messages are very useful, they help me to know how to prepare the beans, rice, or milk that I give them,” she said.
In addition to talking with the beneficiaries, the interdisciplinary team was able to observe the work of measuring weight and height and the personalized food orientation that nutritionists from DIF Yucatán give to the people who participate in the strategy.
With this coordinated work, the aim is to guarantee the comprehensive well-being of pregnant women and their babies from pregnancy, with correct nutrition and food education. It operates in 86 municipalities in vulnerable situations, serving 2,658 women and infants.
Barea Canul added that “nutrition is a key element during childhood, it depends on whether girls and boys have a good development. We are sure that this strategy that we implement with Unicef will yield very positive results in the future ”.
After the visits made, Mauro Brero recognized the work of DIF Yucatán to implement actions in favor of children and pointed out that, soon, the benefits of MHealth Nutres will be expanded to all women and girls and boys enrolled in the Food Assistance Program in the First Thousand Days of Life.
He reported that DIF Yucatán and Unicef will also work on issues such as the creation of the figure of “Promoters of breastfeeding and feeding” in each municipality, as well as a program for the prevention, detection, and timely care of anemia.
With these actions, the State Government continues to join efforts with international organizations to continue providing timely care to women, girls, and boys, to guarantee their health through proper nutrition and food education.
