Designing a Nutritional Monitoring Programme for ECD Centres in Jigawa State

Nutritional monitoring integrated into ECD centre routines can enable early detection of malnutrition and referral to health services for children in Jigawa State, one of Nigeria's highest-burden states for child undernutrition in North West Nigeria. This study designed a nutritional monitoring programme for ECD centres in Hadejia, Kafin Hausa, and Kaugama Local Government Areas, Jigawa State. A professional programme design methodology was employed, drawing on a nutritional status assessment of 200 ECD-enrolled children, structured consultations with 15 ECD supervisors, 10 paediatric nutrition specialists, and 12 PHC nurses, and review of WHO malnutrition detection and referral protocols for community settings. Assessment confirmed severe stunting in 42.3 percent of assessed children and wasting in 18.7 percent, both exceeding national averages. No ECD centre in the study area had a nutritional monitoring component. The programme designed specifies monthly MUAC measurements by trained ECD facilitators, referral pathways to nearest PHC for flagged children, parent counselling on nutritional complementary feeding, and termly nutritional status reporting to LGA health and education departments. Visual data recording tools accessible to facilitators with limited literacy are provided. Expert review by 10 nutrition and ECD specialists confirmed the programme's clinical and operational soundness. Recommendations include piloting through 25 ECD centres in partnership with Jigawa State Primary Healthcare Development Agency and UNICEF, with evaluation of referral completion rates and child weight gain.

Keywords: nutritional monitoring, ECD centres, Jigawa State, child malnutrition, early childhood health