Fathers defy norms, step up to end malnutrition of mothers, babies

Some of the men in the father-to-father support group in Gafuru, Galole, Tana River County discussing how to save for their families' nutrition. [Rose Mukonyo, Standard]

Whenever a baby is born in most societies, it is expected that the mother, not the father, would take care of its every need -- like feeding, clothing and ensuring its comfort.

This wasn’t any different in Tana River County, which is mainly a patriarchal society; it was almost impossible to find a man taking his pregnant wife to the hospital and waiting for her to deliver, or even being present while the mother breastfed.

“It was taboo to imagine that a man could stick by his wife during childbirth. We would remain at home and only inquire about the gender once the child was born,” says Yusuf Farah Mahamud, 50-year-old father to nine children in Galole Sub-County.

For a while now, the Tana River has been hit by long periods of drought, especially in the pastoral and marginal mixed zones, with production indicators showing that the forage condition is poor while the milk production has been below average, according to the National Drought Management Authority.

Such conditions have led to high levels of stunting and malnutrition whereby, according to the Kenya Demographic Health Survey (KDHS 2022), 21 per cent of children under five years are stunted, 11 per cent are wasted, and 17 per cent are underweight, all of which are higher than the national indicators.

“We only get milk from goats and sheep because the cows are hardly at home, and when it is scorched, we can only depend on God,” says Hawa Abubakar, a 19-year-old mother of three in Lakole Village in Galole Sub-County.

The County Government, in partnership with World Vision, has stepped up in the Emergency Response Project KIERP that began two years ago to salvage the situation.

The pregnant and lactating mothers formed mother-to-mother support groups that helped them discuss the best feeding methods, but the men were not left behind; they also formed father-to-father support groups.

“We have decided to step up and take up the mantle of nutrition in our homes by discussing the types of foods that a pregnant woman should feed on, supporting her when she delivers, and we have come to realise this helps in milk letdown,” he says adding that the groups also save some money each month to cater for their families’ nutritional needs.

Farah says they are slowly changing the community’s perspective on women, leading by example in their own families, showing that their nutrition improves when a man is concerned about his family.

Tana River County is mainly a Muslim community, and according to Farah, they have been sensitising the men on the importance of family planning, saying that a well-spaced family will give them ample opportunity to fend for their nutrition.

“A woman who can exclusively breastfeed for six months means that the baby will get full nutrients from the mother, and this can only happen when the mother does not get pregnant immediately after delivery,” says Muslima Digale, the lead mother in one of the mother-to-mother support groups.

According to John Maro, the Community Health Assistant at Pumwani Health Centre in Galole, the nutrition indicators have notably improved since the men began taking the lead in their family’s nutrition.

“We no longer struggle with malnutrition, and if we screen within a month, we may get less than five cases,” he says. “Sometimes during the drought season, the levels of malnutrition increase, but the men are now aggressive in looking for food to ensure their children do not suffer from malnutrition.”

According to Omari Makopa, the Tana River County Nutrition Coordinator, during the drought season, the most affected sub-counties are Tana North, Tana River, and Tana Delta, with Tana North getting the highest numbers in malnutrition.

“The partners were able to get services to the hard-to-reach areas of Tana North are mostly pastoralists and are the worst hit by malnutrition where they give cash transfers and medical outreaches such as in Lakole,” he says.

Another way that World Vision has helped people in the North, is by providing water tanks and water troughs for the livestock.

Abdalla Tiyisu, a resident of Chewele Morokani says this has reduced the distance that women have been taking to the river in search of water and can now concentrate on taking care of their families, also decreasing the water-borne illnesses as water is treated at the source.

During the dry season, when the animals are too weak to move and many die due to the drought, the county government, in partnership with World Vision, has bought off the weak livestock.

“We first screen the cows before slaughtering them, check for any illnesses and give them the meat, and for the better livestock that we believe can survive the drought, we have offered feed pellets,” says Austine Otieno, the Bangale Sub-County Veterinary Officer.

According to Martin Anjimbi, the Project Officer of Health and Nutrition in the KIERP Project in Tana River, the immediate beneficiaries of the meat are those who are also beneficiaries of cash transfers to mitigate malnutrition.

One such farmer is Hussein Gure in Bilbil village in Tana North whose 20 of his cows had died of hunger.

“It was so painful watching my herd fall one after the other, I would spend the nights outside with the other men watching our cows fizzle out, but then World Vision was kind enough to buy what was remaining, the situation was dire,” he says.