MAMI: Management of small and nutritionally at-risk Infants under 6 months and their mothers

Save the Children’s MAMI Vision

Our vision is a world in which all small and nutritionally at-risk infants under 6 months (u6m) of age are identified and supported to survive and thrive.

Save the Children’s MAMI Mission

To enable infants u6m to survive and thrive through increased quality and availability of services for small and nutritionally at-risk infants u6m and their mothers by scaling up multi-sector programming, enhancing capacity, filling evidence and learning gaps and actively engaging with partners as a global leader.

The Problem

Globally among infants u6m, 18% are born low birthweight, 20% are underweight (WAZ<-2), 21% are wasted (WHZ<-2) and 17% are stunted (HAZ<-2). Infants u6m make up approximately 20% of the global burden of severe acute malnutrition (SAM).

Infants u6m are unique. Their wellbeing is intrinsically linked to that of their mother/ caregiver, being completely dependent on breastfeeding (or a breastmilk substitute ) to meet all their nutritional needs. Developmental changes from birth to 6-months are exponential compared to later in childhood. Younger infants are at greater risk of death than older children, with feeding practices closely linked to risk. In addition to this baseline risk, additional risk factors increase an infants’ vulnerabilities, for example being born prematurely or at low birthweight (<2500g).

The MAMI Care Pathway

MAMI guides the holistic case management of at-risk infants under 6 months and their mothers through community-based services. MAMI looks to leverage and build on what already exists within services for mothers and infants. MAMI links mothers and babies to existing services and links prevention and treatment.

The MAMI Care Pathway provides a guide for health workers to identify, assess, classify and manage at-risk infants under 6-months and their mothers. When a mother and u6m infant present to a contact point, the MAMI Care Pathway guides the assessment of: danger signs, Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) clinical signs & symptoms, growth of infant, MAMI risk-factors, infant feeding practices, and maternal wellbeing.

For more information on MAMI and the MAMI Care Pathway, see the MAMI Global Network webpage.

Resources to implement the MAMI Care Pathway

To help implement the MAMI Care Pathway, Save the Children developed a series of implementation tools. The aim being to help practitioners and programme managers to develop, adapt, implement, and monitor the MAMI care pathway for their context. Each of these packages provides slides, activity sheets, and handouts to guide the practitioners through these workshops.

After the MAMI & the MAMI Care Pathway Orientation is provided, the MAMI Care Pathway and the implementation tools can be adapted to the specific context through the guided workshop package. Once ready to begin implementation, the MAMI Care Pathway Training Package has been developed for training of frontline health/ nutrition workers and the MAMI MEAL Package to support staff to design and implement robust monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning of the MAMI Care Pathway implementation.

MAMI Orientations & Webinars

Various webinars and orientations on MAMI and the MAMI Care Pathway can be found on the MAMI Global Network youtube channel: MAMI Global Network – YouTube