School Health Screening Project Part 1 –

Otra vez, saludos desde Oaxaca.

I’ve been a poor blogger the past couple of weeks — I’ve had a very disrupted schedule with the quarantine that lasted about 2 weeks and which necessitated many changes in planned travels.  But being home doesn’t mean being idle!  It just means a bit less exciting activities to write about.  That said, I’ll start trying to catch everyone up on what’s been going on with Semillas de Salud and the School Health Screening Project (named Juntos Por Salud in spanish — Together for Health).

This school health screening project was the designated offering project for the Vacation Bible Schools of Covenant Churches.  Through the generous sharing of the children in these VBS programs, we received approximately $35,000 to use in screening school children between the ages of 3 and 12 for anemia, lazy eye, vision difficulties, hearing difficulties, height, and weight.  A physical exam by a trained professional is also hoped to be included for each child.

 

 

First why these tests?  Anemia, “weak blood” or “tired blood”, is usually due to a lack of sufficient iron in the diet, and can adversely impact the cognitive development of children.  In fact studies have shown that iron deficiency alone without yet being of a level to cause anemia, impacts cognitive development negatively.  Much of this is a vicious cycle, since the mothers are often iron deficient, the babies are born with lower iron stores, the breast milk provides less iron, and the subsequentdiet is deficient in iron.  All children hit a low point in iron stores and hemoglobin level (what is measured to determine anemia) around 9 – 12 months of age.  The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that breast fed babies receive iron supplementation beginning at 6 months of age to avoid anemia.  Here in Mexico many babies start with a lower store of iron and do not receive supplementation.  The subsequent solid food diet also often is iron deficient (though the very poorest often have a bit less problem with anemia because they eat a lot more beans and lentils, things that are replaced with poorer iron sources such as chicken and pork when a little money is available).  With the anemia can come this poorer cognitive development and subsequent problems with learning.  The earlier we can detect this and correct this, the better the long term prognosis on a community and individual level for school success. 

In each community, we look for patterns of the anemia — who has anemia?  at what ages?  do they “outgrow” it?  is there a discernible difference in diet or such in the children with anemia?  With this we can work with the community to develop a program to hopefully not only correct the current anemia in individual children, but also to change habits so as to prevent anemia on a community wide level.  While I am hoping to eventually be able to compile enough data to encourage the government health system to provide iron supplementation to all infants starting at 6 months of age, we are also hoping to work with groups of parents and health providers in each community to help find affordable iron resources — whether in returning to more of a traditional diet with more beans, lentils, or such, to encouraging the use of amaranth, an ancient grain that was used by the Aztecs and has a high protein and iron content. This is a slow process, but one that hopefully takes root deep enough to persist and to change things on the community level while bettering the lives of the individual children.

Anemia illustrates well the “micro” concern of the physician for the individual with a problem as well as the “macro” concern of the public health worker seeking patterns that can help lead to effective interventions.  I want each individual child to be healthy, and I want the community to be a place where it is easy for families to do what will bring maximum health to the children.  This also reflects the combination of “God loving the whole world”, a macro concern, with the care and healing of individuals throughout Jesus’ ministry.    We are striving to bring a touch of God’s love to each individual child who is seen, but also a proclamation to the community that God is here and loves them and wants them to know his love.  Sometimes we focus more on macro, sometimes on micro.  In the end, though, we must do both, whether in health or in mission/evangelism.

I hope to get back to this blog by the end of the week to continue talking about why we’re testing what we’re testing, and how we’re doing it.  And we do have some results to report.  This will take several posts….it’s a long road, but an exciting one.  Thanks for journeying along with me.  Please pray for this project, for Semillas de Salud, and for me as we slowly enter communities with health and God’s love.  Prayer support is vital for what is going on here, for encouragement and wisdom and perseverance at times.  Financial support is also welcome.  If you as an individual, or your church would like to participate financial with supporting me or my ministry of holistic health, checks or inquiries can be sent to:

• Dept. of World Mission
• Evangelical Covenant Church
• 5101 North Francisco Ave.
• Chicago, IL  60625

              Hasta la proxima.  Be Well.

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