Mothers First

Mothers First has completely evolved its approach since its foundation in 2004. The evolution from the treatment of severe malnutrition in children to preventing it from happening in the first place. Mothers First recognised that the high rates of malnutrition experienced by mothers during pregnancy were directly linked to babies being born malnourished. A baby who is born malnourished very often will remain malnourished. These babies are often referred to as weak babies and fail to thrive. In the community that we work in, we screen all pregnant mothers for the clinical signs of malnutrition. We know if they are malnourished their unborn baby will also be experiencing malnutrition. To counteract this, we provide a direct food package for the mother during pregnancy and 4 months post-delivery. The package consists of 8 kg of high-quality local food. It also includes a daily supply of essential micronutrients such as Iron and Folic Acid and Calcium. A malnourished mother eating a more nutrient-rich diet will directly help improve her babies nutrition status at birth. On average, the intervention given every month will improve the birth weight by approximately 200g. While this might not seem a lot we must consider that birth weight frequently are less the 2.5kg (5.5 pounds)

How much does it cost to run the program? On average, it costs 10 euros per month to deliver the intervention to each mother. The average length of time a mother is on the program is 9 months equals 90 Euro. Every gram counts.

90 Euro for 200g of a pure human being. Mothers First is run by a small group of volunteers, and so we have no administration costs here in Ireland. Each donation goes directly to the point of most need. Pat Mc Mahon
Founder of Mothers First
17th July 2021