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Who We Help /

Children Under Five

Providing the micronutrients that children need to survive and thrive.

Well-nourished children have stronger immune systems and improved overall health, making them more resistant to sickness and disease, with improved outcomes for brain development and human potential.

Field Story - The power of zinc: Nowfel’s story

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5.3M

Children die before their fifth birthday

29%

Children under five in low- and middle-income countries are vitamin a deficient

144M

Children under five are stunted

The Challenge

Every year over five million children die before their fifth birthday.

Adequate nutrition in the first years of a child’s life provides the essential building blocks for brain development, healthy growth, and a strong immune system, and it helps prevent future non-communicable diseases associated with overweight.

Despite significant recent accomplishments made in reducing child mortality, every year over five million children die before their fifth birthday because of:

  • Inadequate infant and young child nutrition (IYCN), especially a lack of breastfeeding
  • Deficiencies in micronutrients such as vitamin A and iron
  • Diarrhoea

Malnutrition in children

Malnutrition contributes to 45% of the deaths of children under five.

Recent assessments indicate that although most countries have national IYCN policies in place, there remain many gaps in action. Combined with staggering levels of food insecurity, almost half of the world’s children under five years old are considered anaemic, and 144 million are stunted.

Globally, only two out of every five infants are exclusively breastfed. Rates of exclusive breastfeeding vary by region and by country, but globally, it is stalled at 40% − far from the global goal of at least 80%, and the World Health Assembly target of 50% by 2025.

Vitamin A deficiency

Vitamin A deficiency is the world’s leading preventable cause of childhood blindness.

Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) remains a global health problem due to poor diets and recurrent infections among children under five. VAD is associated with significantly higher morbidity and mortality from common childhood infections. In 2013, approximately 29% of children under five in low- and middle-income countries were vitamin A-deficient.

Diarrhoea

Diarrhoea continues to be a leading cause of child deaths, totaling over 480,000 deaths every year.

Eight percent of all deaths of children under five are due to diarrhoea. In the post-neonatal period, this is second only to pneumonia and is equivalent to the number of deaths from malaria and HIV/AIDS combined. This equates to over 1,300. These deaths are avoidable, however, care-seeking for childhood diarrhoea remains low in many settings; caregivers often wait until the child is very ill before seeking care outside the home, and the health service they receive is not always adequate.

Our Global Projects

Discover our projects around the world

Browse our complete list of projects to learn about how we deliver high-impact, low-cost, evidence-based nutrition programs for those who need it most.

Browse more projects like these

Bridging the fortification gap in the Philippines

Nutrition International is leading a collaborative effort to improve the micronutrient status of women, adolescent girls and children in the Philippines by improving fortification policies.

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Bridging the fortification gap in the Philippines

Increase Gains in Nutrition by Integration, Education, Evaluation, Empowerment…

Working alongside our partners, this project will deliver integrated nutrition, health and WASH programming for those who need it most in Malawi, Ghana and Pakistan.

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Increase Gains in Nutrition by Integration, Education, Evaluation, Empowerment (IGNIT3)

Realizing Gender Equality, Attitudinal Change and Transformative Systems in…

REACTS-IN contributes to achieving global nutrition targets by improving the health and nutrition of women, adolescent girls and children under five in Bangladesh, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania.

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Realizing Gender Equality, Attitudinal Change and Transformative Systems in Nutrition (REACTS-IN)

Improving quality nutrition services across the first 1,000 days in Gujarat and…

Nutrition International is implementing and evaluating a model for the improved quality of nutrition services across the first 1,000 days in two districts in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, India.

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Improving quality nutrition services across the first 1,000 days in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh in India

Improving nutrition in the Pakistan flood response

This project will help to address the nutritional needs of children in Pakistan who were severely impacted by flooding in 2022 and are now at a higher risk for diarrhoea and malnutrition.

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Improving nutrition in the Pakistan flood response

Related

Field Story

Go door-to-door to deliver vitamin A supplementation in remote areas in…

Follow a health worker in Jamalpur, Bangladesh, as he travels by boat to deliver life-saving vitamin A supplementation (VAS) to children under five.

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Infant and Young Child Nutrition

Ensuring children have the good nutrition they need to survive and thrive.

We support and promote exclusive breastfeeding and complementary feeding, which are essential for children to receive all the nutrients needed for healthy growth.

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Supplementation

Delivering the key micronutrients the body needs to survive and thrive.

We deliver the key micronutrients the body needs to survive and thrive through supplementation, a low-cost and simple solution that helps prevent the most common micronutrient deficiencies.

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