Author(s): Jyoti S Hallad, BI Pundappanavar and Sajini B Nair

Abstract:
Introduction: During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, wherein the ICDS services have been disrupted and newer initiatives are being implemented to maintain and improve the nutritional levels of the children, it is important to assess the implementation of different programmes that target improvement of nutrition levels of children under five years. In the present paper an attempt has been made to understand the experiences and perspectives of mothers towards supplementary nutrition received by their children through ICDS scheme during Prepandemic and Pandemic period in India.
Materials and Methods: The study covered 11 States of the country. Altogether, 3371 mothers (320 from each State), covering 32 AWCs from each State, whose children were enrolled at the AWCs were included in the study. AWCs were selected from rural and urban areas by using Systematic Random Sampling method.
Results: Most of the children received supplementary nutrition at AWC and most of them consumed it, in both rural and urban areas during pre-pandemic and pandemic period. The percentage of children received cooked food during prepandemic period and that of Ration during pandemic period varied by place of residence and socio economic characteristics of mothers. Binary logistic regression analysis clearly indicates that young mothers, illiterate mothers, mothers from APL households and mothers from non-nuclear families especially from rural areas are not satisfied with quantity of ration received from AWCs during pandemic period. Further, mothers above the age group of 30 years, above 10^th standard educated, women from forward community and women belonging to APL households, especially in rural areas are comparatively less satisfied with the quality of ration received from AWCs during pandemic period. Rural mothers, young mothers, women belonging to Hindu religion and ST caste, from APL households preferred cooked food, whereas mothers from urban areas relatively elderly aged group, belonging to other religion, other backward class, BPL household and having 3 or more living children preferred ration from AWCs as supplementary nutrition for their child.
Conclusion: AWCs responded well to the call on alternate methods of service delivery during the pandemic and AWWs have tried their level best to provide the supplementary nutrition at their doorsteps even during pandemic period which is reflected in the mothers’ satisfaction with the ration provided by AWCs.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22271/23957476.2024.v10.i3g.1736