Terre des hommes has been developing projects for health and nutrition for over 30 years, and in that time has acquired a well-founded knowledge in these matters. The majority of our interventions across the world began with treatment for severe malnutrition, mainly resulting from humanitarian crises, emergency situations, famine, civil wars or natural catastrophes. Terre des hommes, in collaboration with the public health systems, helps to strengthen and promote health care connected to nutrition.

Particular stress is laid on prevention, especially through community programs. With the exception of emergency interventions, the program of Terre des hommes is double-effect: support for development of public health services, and parallel, initiatives towards appropriate action by the people themselves. Appeals are also an integral part of our programs. Health and nutrition is a strategic sector for major intervention, receiving 30% of our expenditure on programs abroad in 2006.


Terre des hommes' vision
More than 10 million children under five die each year, mainly in poor countries. 50% of these deaths are caused by infectious diseases connected to malnutrition. If malnutrition were wiped out, infant mortality would be reduced by half. These children do not die of malnutrition itself (except during famines), but rather of contagious ailments such as acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea, malaria, measles.
The risk to life is far greater for a child with slight, moderate or severe malnutrition than it is for a well-fed child; and it is the slight or moderate forms which cause most deaths. Malnutrition is often unseen; it does not show until after several episodes of wrong feeding and sickness. Delayed growth, also known as chronic malnutrition, affects 180 million children. The consequences are fraught: the child's physical and mental development can be irreversibly affected.

During the past decade, Terre des hommes has noted a higher death rate in the under-five's. Neonatal mortality (up to one month old) has come to the forefront, and in many areas, maternal mortality remains very high. Interventions at a reasonable cost would save 2/3 of the present death toll. This regards breast-feeding over a prolonged period without other food, the use of mosquito nets, safe births, dietary diversification, acces to clean water, purification plus hygiene, vaccination, etc.
But the public health systems are in great difficulty and struggle to give services as basic as primary health care. In southern countries, the budget for health care is seldom higher than 4% of the GDP (in Switzerland about 10%) and is never sufficient. Add to this a shortage of qualified personnel and a lack of support and motivation for the existing staff.


Terre des hommes' actions
Terre des hommes bases its program to promote good health on three main points: enable people to take in hand their own health care; support and strengthen health services to ensure high quality, accessible care; and, finally, to plead for health. Support for clean water and purification services is equally important, and depending on context, can be the object of specific programs.

The promotion, protection and support for healthy nutrition, together with care given in households, communities and health centers, reduce infant mortality and significantly improve physical and mental development in children. Terre des hommes' work on nutrition concerns: breast-feeding exclusively for the first 6 months, then suitable supplementary feeding for 6 months, with breast-feeding extended up to 2 years; granting of benefits for suitable nutrition of sick or wrongly-fed children; an adequate intake of Vitamin A and iron for women and children; and finally an adequate intake of iodine for all members of a household.

Terre des hommes attaches special importance to treatment support in cases of acute, severe malnutrition (children who are emaciated and/or with swollen limbs) in the paediatric department of a hospital centre or in a specialized centre.


A scene from real life
"During my home visits to check on the post-natal development of little Iman, I saw that she was not doing as well as she should have. The doctor at the health centre diagnosed malnutrition. Later, I found out that she stopped feeding too quickly because she was lying uncomfortably. Together with her mother, we worked out a better position for breast-feeding, and baby Iman soon gained weight again." Amina, volunteer in Egypt.