Can improved nutrition during pregnancy help prevent stunted growth in children around the world? With partners in Ecuador, Lora Iannotti studies the effects of maternal diet on infant brain development.
Under a large tent outside a medical clinic in El Quinche, Ecuador, shiny pink streamers sway in the April breeze. It seems like an unlikely place for a baby shower, but the women gathered here are familiar with the spot. They first entered the tent months before as newly expectant mothers, referred by their health-care providers to register for the Mikhuna Project, a WashU-led study on maternal nutrition and infant brain formation.
The participants returned to the tent throughout their pregnancies to pick up food, learn about nutrition and receive medical exams. On this day, they gather to celebrate some of the babies soon to arrive — infants whose brain scans may help countless more children in the future.
Here in Ecuador, 25% of young children experience stunted growth, usually due to malnutrition. Among the country’s Indigenous children, the number jumps to 40%. Globally, nearly 150 million children are stunted. Participants in the Mikhuna Project and their babies are contributing valuable data that may help reduce these troubling statistics.
Lora Iannotti, founder and director of the E3 Nutrition Lab and a professor at WashU’s Brown School, has been combatting childhood malnutrition and stunted growth for decades. Her research projects in Haiti, Ecuador, Kenya and Madagascar have focused primarily on a child’s critical first 1,000 days of life.