Do Maternal Spot Feeding Programs Effect Birth Weight

Download or read book Do Maternal Spot Feeding Programs Effect Birth Weight? written by Sumedha Minocha and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh became the first state in India to provide one full meal per day to pregnant woman as a part of the supplementary nutrition program of the Integrated Child Development Services in 2013. The objective of the program is to fight maternal undernutrition by providing hot cooked meals at the Anganwadi center, in addition to direct administration of iron and folic acid supplements. I use two rounds of National family health survey of India to create a panel of cohort born from 2012 to 2018 and apply quasi- experimental methods to evaluate the impact of the given program on birth weight. Specifically, I use difference-in-difference model and event study design. Overall, I find a significant and positive effect of the program, with a 35- 44 grams improvement in birth weight and 3-3.5% lower probability of low birth weight babies, with the program's effect concentrated in rural and poor households Given the importance of first 1000 days of life, including in-utero, the one full meal program for pregnant woman presents a scalable model for fighting the stubborn rates of maternal and child undernutrition in India.