A take-home milk supplementation programme consisting of 2 kg dry powdered milk offered monthly for 12 months to children 6--24 months of age in participating primary health care clinics was evaluated by assessing weight changes in supplemented and control children. Growth charts of supplemented (n = 362) and control (n = 410) children were summarized by the intercept and slope from the regression of individual weight measurements on age. The 2 groups were stratified by gender, ethnicity (Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese), and age intervals 0--6, 6--24, and 24--30 months which corresponded to pre, during, and post supplementation periods, respectively. Supplemented Indo-Guyanese girls gained significantly (p < 0.001) more weight than their controls: the difference being approximately 40 grams per month. No other differences were observed in the other gender/ethnic groups. Contextual information collected in a sub-sample of 60 mothers/caregivers of beneficiaries revealed that the supplement was mainly consumed with porridge, and tended to be shared more in the Afro-Guyanese than in Indo-Guyanese households. Over 90% of the beneficiaries were satisfied with the programme and wanted it to continue while 74% stated that it was of financial benefit. For future programmes, the use of locally produced infant cereal was recommended.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.20558 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Chan, Susan Deborah. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001610634, proquestno: MQ44143, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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