Vitamin Angels Development Coordinator Brittany Andrews is in Nicaragua observing vitamin distributions implemented through our Operation 20/20 and Thrive to Five programs. She is joined by Vitamin Angels President Howard Schiffer, photographer Matt Dayka and our friends and partners at Univera.

I felt the contrast of this new country with my own on the first day of our trip. During our drive to El Trapiche, dust flooded our vehicle. Jim Oman, Executive Director of The Rainbow Network, carried along the conversation as if the air wasn’t suddenly full of dirt and our bodies weren’t being tossed from side to side with each rock and pothole encountered. Through each bump and turn I learned that this experience was quite normal. The majority of places The Rainbow Network operates in are remote villages and communities. These are also the places Vitamin Angles strives to work in, since communities outside the typical government distribution system are those most in need of micronutrient supplementation. Jim told us that during the rainy season, the roads of El Trapiche become so flooded that driving is impossible, making much needed medical trips simply out of the question.

When the road came to an end we were faced with two lines of freshly built shacks, each with cement flooring and a tin roof. These homes are significant improvements from the usual residencies of this area, which were previously constructed of poles and tarp coverings and could on any occasion fall victim to flooding and rodent/bug infestations. The next thing I knew I was cradling a one year old baby boy named Umberto, who had a slight cold, but a smile that would melt your heart. His mother, Angelica, told us that she understood the value of prenatal vitamins during pregnancy, and had taken them while carrying each of her four children. She had delivered each child in a hospital and only had a complication during one birth. I found about half of the women we interviewed were very aware of the important role diet, micronutrient supplementation and regular medical check-ups played in the health and wellbeing of them and their children. Umberto’s mother, Angelica, also expressed a deep sadness that her elder two children had to discontinue school in order to work in the field. She said that she hopes Umberto can receive a good education someday and grow up to be a professional.

Across the street from Umberto’s family’s home, we had an interesting discussion with a grandmother named Susucena. Susucena discussed her own pregnancies and health throughout the birth of her seven children. She had lost four babies due to complications during and after pregnancy and experienced one stillborn. She didn’t have any access to prenatal vitamins and consumed a diet of rice, beans and tortillas, supplemented on occasion by milk. She shared that her daughter-in-laws have been taking prenatal vitamins and going for regular clinic check-ups. Not only have they been healthier during their pregnancies, but also their grandchildren have more energy and become sick less often. She said the prenatal vitamins have changed everything.

I also spoke with Adela and her family, who have lived in Los Tinajas for many years. The town has very poor living conditions, and her children have suffered from repeated colds and respiratory problems. Their home has a dirt floor and rodents who carry disease, leave droppings in the family’s food, and have overtaken the home. While Adela supplemented her last two pregnancies with some herbs from her plant garden, she wasn’t able to visit a clinic for regular check-ups or take prenatal vitamins and had a cough throughout her pregnancy. Adela was happy to tell me that since then, a clinic has opened up closer to her home. She also shared that an education is the only thing she can give her children, as they have very few material possessions. This is why she hopes her children will be able to receive a higher education, even if the school is far away. Her 8-year-old daughter, Ztxy, told me she likes school and her favorite thing to do was study.

It was through conversations such as these that I understood how my work with Vitamin Angels could help a child like Ztxy to achieve her goals. I saw my role in keeping children like her healthy, so that they can develop both physically and cognitively, ward off infection and disease, and have energy to commit to a higher education. I cherish this opportunity to provide health for all of these children. This is probably the most important foundational stepping stone I can contribute.

Written by Brittany Andrews, Vitamin Angels Development Coordinator

Go here to visit our Nicaragua trip page for more updates and photos>>

Read Betsy Rono’s inspiring speech from League of Angels! Rono helps to coordinate a prenatal vitamin project throughout the Western part of Kenya. She flew in for the event to share how Vitamin Angels’ projects are making a difference in the lives of over 30,000 women. 

"Today, I stand here as a representative of the marginalized Kenyan children and pregnant women who have been touched by your dear kind hands.

I work for The Global Network for Women and Children’s Health Research which is carrying out a project on maternal child health in Western Kenya. The Kenya site came to partner with the Vitamin Angels through Professor Jim Lemons in March 2009. During Howard’s visit in 2009 I went around with them through the rough terrains to reach the women in the deep areas of Western Kenya. When the vehicles couldn’t move further we walked! The vitamins were received by the local communities with great joy! They were happy to see a ‘Mzungu” meaning a white skinned person which they hadn’t seen since 1963.

In Kenya poverty is high among the rural marginalized communities. A healthy child is perceived to be fat with a big tummy! Not knowing this is a sign of malnutrition. They live in mud roomed houses with grass thatched roofs and share with the entire family. Parents sleep on the bed while children on the mud floor.

Many families survive on one meal a day and have to send their children to be casual workers at an early age to fend for their large families. The girls are sent far away to the cities and towns 20 to 200 miles away to work as house helps at a minimal pay of about 12 dollars a month. They have no or minimal health knowledge and rely on superstitions and hearsays.

Oftentimes pregnant mothers are found eating clay soil by the rivers in search of more minerals in response to the body’s increased need for additional nutrients during pregnancy. They are malnourished and weak which increases the labor and delivery duration. They cannot afford hospital fees and cost of drugs and sometimes have to travel a distance of about 16 miles through the rough terrains with no roads to get to the nearest health facility.

Vitamin Angels’ provision of prenatal micronutrients through your generous hands to these poor and marginalized pregnant mothers has brought a smile on these families. The homes where burying a dead baby was part of their daily lives is now history. The story of “she bled to death because she was anemic and the hospital lacked blood” is now history and forgotten. The story of the mother who was too weak to get the baby out is gone, it is now one push and the baby is out. My presence here today is a true representation of these marginalized voices from Kenya. I am greatly indebted to you all for all the sacrifice to forsake many luxuries for the sake of these poor mothers and babies who would otherwise be dead and forgotten but today they are alive, healthy and smiling. Now the mothers are very strong to undertake their daily chores to fend for their children and busy encouraging others to take the prenatal vitamins.

Now I’d like to share with you the stories of two women whose lives you have greatly touched:

A 36 year old mother of seven from Namaondo East village is a member of the core group. Before the introduction of vitamin angels in her village she used to be very weak and sickly throughout the previous pregnancy period. She couldn’t work; she couldn’t eat and was in bed until delivery. Even after delivery she would remain sick for the next three months. She used to experience heavy bleeding and breastfeeding was a problem due to lack of breast milk. She says thanks to God for sending the Vitamin Angels to her village. She reports that she was very strong throughout the period of pregnancy and was able to work after taking prenatal vitamins. She gave birth to an 11.5 pounds (5.2 kg) baby. The baby is now a year old, very healthy and strong. She is still breastfeeding her baby and promises to continue till 2 years because she now has enough breast milk. She is an active promoter of the wonders of Vitamin Angels among women groups in her village!

A 23 year old mother from Chwele ‘A’ village has had 3 unsuccessful pregnancies. She has had problems throughout her pregnancies. She was referred to a specialized doctor but couldn’t afford it due to lack of finances, so she opted to allow nature to take its course. She learned about the prenatal vitamins from Vitamin Angels through a local core group and decided to try to get pregnant again! She took prenatal vitamins throughout the pregnancy period of 9 months and soon discovered she was pregnant with twins! When she went into labor she visited the health centre for safe delivery. She delivered twins- a boy and a girl who weighed 6.2 pounds and 7.7 pounds respectively. She said that after using vitamins she could eat everything and could perform all household duties. She was strong and healthy throughout her pregnancy unlike the previous pregnancies and has enough breast milk for her twins. She recommends that vitamins are the best support for any poor and marginalized pregnant mothers and wishes that these prenatal vitamins continue to help those weak mothers who usually lose their babies during pregnancy and after birth. She is now a proud mother of two after losing three babies!

These case stories illustrate the interest created by the Vitamin Angels as the women debate among themselves the question of their health. Distribution of prenatal vitamins has been perceived as treatment by the community and has helped them to enter in at the first level of health care- a target towards the vision 2030 in Kenya. This has resulted in the community owning the responsibility of their health and well being!

Provision of prenatal vitamins to poor pregnant mothers has put a smile back on their faces. They can now be called, mother again! They can be recognized by their husbands again and feel respected by the community, their in laws! They can give their views and people will listen! Their babies are all smiles! They are empowered!

On behalf of these poor and marginalized mothers, communities, may my voice today represent their sincere thanks and smiles from their babies! Thank you!"

Amy Steets, Betsy Rono, and Jessamyn Wead

Howard Schiffer, Kalista Munoz, and Betsy Rono

We recently received new photographs from Honduras where we are reaching 17,600 children and 9,300 pregnant mothers with essential multivitamins. Through our Thrive to Five project, with our partners Cristo Salva, children under five are receiving daily multivitamins and bi-yearly anti-parasitics through their schools. Out-of-school children are reached by local intermediaries.

The photographs below show Cristo Salva’s prenatal distribution, made possible through a donation from Procabs Labs. Three million children’s multiple micronutrients on currently en route to Honduras as well, thanks to a donation from Nexgen Inc.

“Thanks for all the work, not only for the vitamins, but just for ‘being there’… you are so much appreciated, I don’t think I could ever express how much.” Pat Havener RN, Medical Director at Cristo Salva.

Photographs courtesy of Cristo Salva.

Read a field story from Honduras>>

Kim Saam, Vitamin Angels Communications Manager & Executive Assistant, shares a few thoughts as she prepares for her new baby:

One day soon there’s going to be a new man in my life. Though I’ve been waiting around for 9 months for the big day to arrive, it’s nonetheless really hard to wrap my head around the idea that soon there will be a completely new little person in the world and he’ll be calling me ‘mom.’

I’ve had the pleasure of getting to share my first pregnancy with the Vitamin Angels team (and our extended family), which has been a truly amazing experience. I’m so grateful to get to spend my days working to help mothers and children in need, and going through this process myself has only increased my level of gratitude and appreciation for being able to do something so meaningful every day. Not to mention it’s been awesome to share in the sheer excitement and enthusiasm of the VA team throughout the whole process.

Working at VA I’m privy to a lot of information about the importance of health and nutrition during pregnancy after birth and through those first few formative years. This is great, but at least for me, also gave me plenty of opportunity to worry that I wasn’t doing it well enough. I was taking my prenatal vitamins (of course!), but I wanted to be as informed as possible, and read a bunch of books trying to make sure I did everything ‘right.’ Looking at the lists of foods I was meant to consume everyday was overwhelming. How was it was remotely possible to eat:

6-11 servings of whole grains, 4 servings of protein, 3 servings of green leafy vegetables, 2 servings of other fruits & veggies, 2 servings of vitamin C foods, 4 servings of calcium foods, iron rich foods, and 4 servings of high-fat foods – every day?! Not to mention that being a vegetarian came with special requirements for 5 servings of complex proteins, one serving of which, for example, might be: 1 cup of beans + 1 1/3 cups of rice… and I was supposed to eat 5 a day!? (These recommendations are actually out of a well-known book!)

Wouldn’t all of those servings combined equal something like 5,000 calories? And wasn’t gaining excess weight also a big no-no? Not to mention I had decided to inform myself of all of the nutritional do’s and don’ts during my first trimester when a queasy stomach made wanting to eat at all a challenge. The whole thing was laughable. Yet I will admit I did actually have a small panic attack or two worrying that I was going to let my baby down and mess up his health forever. After all, nutritional intake from conception to age 2 can irreversibly affect a child’s health… for their whole life.

My personal nutritional drama was starkly juxtaposed to the images and stories I encountered at work each day. Stories of moms who couldn’t make ends meet or who couldn’t get the nutrition they needed for themselves or their children because they couldn’t afford it. Severe rains washed out their crops, farming was too dangerous due to unexploded bombs littering their land, droughts, and on and on. It was hard to think of these women who wanted the same healthy beginnings for their children without the means to provide it. Meanwhile I was sitting at home feeling guilty that I should have eaten a whole grain bagel instead of that blueberry muffin. Or that I felt too nauseous to eat my 5 servings of veggies that day and could only manage to get down some cottage cheese and crackers.

I remember hitting about 25 weeks (full term is 40 weeks) and my little week-by-week chart telling me that my baby was 1.5-2lbs and realizing that this was the size that many of the babies that we are reaching are when they are born. I went back and looked at the pictures of Howard’s trip to Kenya and the tiny babies in the NICU. And looking at little baby Jenny in Haiti who was only the size of Howard’s hand, and feeling just crushed. The world was so unfair. And yet the stories of strength and perseverance of these mothers and children were amazing. Looking at their faces you could see the determination to make the most of their circumstances and succeed.

I already love my job, and motivation to go everyday has never been a problem. But going through this process has made me all the more enthusiastic to do my best to help those moms who are so strong but don’t have access to the nutrition they need. The least I can do is work to get them a bottle of vitamins, which as we’ve seen time and again with moms like Asha in India, can make a world of difference. Seeing the gratitude on the faces of moms like Esperanza in Guatemala, saying thank you for caring and for something as simple as a bottle of vitamins speaks volumes. Seems like the least I could do.

I’m off to share some special time with my new little guy, but I look forward to coming back to the Vitamin Angels team refreshed and ready to keep helping those moms and babies get a healthy start.

The Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (IGME), led by the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization, released a 2010 year-end report on child mortality in 2009. The report describes progress on Millennium Development Goal 4 which calls for reducing the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015. The study says that “Globally, the number of deaths among children under age five has fallen from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009.”

However, while “The rate of decline in under-five mortality has accelerated over 2000–2009 compared with the 1990s,” this is still is not enough to reach MDG 4, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia and Oceania. “The highest rates of child mortality continue to be in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 1 child in 8 dies before age five—nearly 20 times the average of 1 in 167 for developed regions.” The article explains that many children under five are dying because of pneumonia (18 percent of deaths) and diarrheal diseases (15 percent). “Globally, more than 1/3 of child deaths are attributable to undernutrition… [and] revitalizing efforts against pneumonia and diarrhea, while bolstering nutrition, could save millions of children.”

Go here to read the IGME report>>

Figures 8 and 9 from "Levels & Trends in Child Mortality" by IGME

Mother and child in India.

This month Vitamin Angels observes International Women’s Day (March 8th) by recognizing the history of maternal health in the US and by acting on the inequalities facing new mothers in our global community. According to the United Nations, the first International Women’s Day was observed in 1909, a year that also marked the beginning of organized prenatal care in the US. This included the development of intensive prenatal care for women with special health care needs, wide-scale creation of outpatient clinics for prenatal care, and the beginning of the American Association for Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality.

Tragically, today, vast global disparities of wealth and unequal access to maternal healthcare have left women in the developing world behind. The World Health Organization estimates that “Each day, approximately 1,000 women die from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth,…99% of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries…[and] more than half of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and one third occur in South Asia.”* In the spirit of International Women’s Day, we encourage readers to help shift the tides of global maternal equality by:

1) Learning more about Vitamin Angels and millennium development goal (MDG) 5 to reduce maternal mortality worldwide>>

2) Donating $10 to provide a year supply of prenatal vitamins for a new or expecting mother in need>>

*WHO Maternal mortality key facts

Check out these top three Facebook comments from our latest Caption Contests! 

"A smile from the soul defies all that is against it, even gravity!!!" - Danny Diaz

"Your vitamins are giving me a fighting chance!!" - Deborah Jacobs Wagner 

"First one to blink doesn't get their vitamins." - Anthony D. Nelson

Go here to read more Vitamin Angels Facebook comments>>