Throughout the life cycle, women have unique nutritional needs, particularly during adolescence, pregnancy, and lactation. Improving women’s nutrition during these periods has multiple benefits for maternal health and wellbeing, newborn and young child survival, health and nutrition, all producing positive effects on the next generations. 
 
Maternal nutrition can be improved through multiple pathways, all of which require the application of quality social and behavior change (SBC) techniques to enhance the usefulness of antenatal and postnatal maternal counseling on consuming a healthy diet; improve family and community dialogue and decision-making around food and nutrition; create greater demand for healthy diets for women and their families, including adolescents; increase women’s access to resources; expand gender equality and ensure empowerment of women and adolescent girls; and build women’s leadership in local food, health, and agriculture systems.

On September 14, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership joined USAID Advancing Nutrition for a webinar to discuss maternal diets and new USAID resources on social and behavior change. Presenters from both projects shared these new resources with implementers and fostered discussion on how they can be used to improve maternal nutrition.

Webinar Recording

Speakers

• Laura Itzkowitz, Nutrition Social and Behavior Change Advisor, USAID Bureau for Global Health
• Habtamu Fedaku, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership / Save the Children
• Marcia Griffiths, MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership / The Manoff Group
• Katherine Dickin, USAID Advancing Nutrition / Cornell University
• Mariam Diakite, USAID Advancing Nutrition / University of California San Diego