IMCI and Parents

by Alanna Shaikh · 2009-02-10 16:09:00 UTC
Topics:

breastfeeding baby (with excellent attachment)

(photo credit: Raphael Goetter)

One of the really unique things about IMCI is its focus on counseling parents to take good care of sick children. Children spend far more time at home that they do in health care facilities, so it makes a lot of sense to talk to parents about good care.

If you were a parent, and you brought your child with diarrhea to a clinic with IMCI care, they would first check your child to make sure he wasn't severely dehydrated or suffering from cholera. Having determined that, they'd send him home with you and give you instructions for how to take care of him.

They'd tell you that he should eat normally. If his appetite is weak, he should be encouraged to eat. Make his favorite foods, and feed him on demand. He should drink more fluids than normal, to replace what he's losing in diarrhea. Much of that fluid should be oral rehydration solution. In a baby too young for solids, they'd tell you to keep breastfeeding and breastfeed him more often to compensate for his tendency to take less milk at each feeding. You should also give the child zinc, dissolved in breastmilk for an exclusively breastfed baby, or in any fluid the child drinks for older children. The doctor would give you the zinc powder.

If you brought your child with a bad cold to a clinic with IMCI care, they would check your child to make sure that she didn't have pneumonia. For an ordinary cold, they'd send her home with you and tell you to make sure she ate normally, and was encouraged to eat if she lost her appetite. She should get a normal amount of fluids. Just like a child with diarrhea, she should be breastfed more often since children with colds often have a hard time nursing and don't take much milk.

And these are the IMCI danger signs that mean you must immediately take your child to a doctor:

  1. Cannot drink or breastfeed

  2. Child keeps getting sicker

  3. High fever

  4. Fast or difficult breathing

  5. Blood in stool

  6. Vomits everything

  7. Convulsions

  8. Severe lethargy, or unconsciousness

This is my last post on IMCI for now. You can find the entire WHO provider's guide for IMCI online. It's really an amazing document. It lays out diagnostics and treament with extraordinary clarity.

Alanna Shaikh
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