Maternal and Child Nutrition Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Nutrition Officers, Public Health Officers and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-PH-029

Before you join: Participants should have basic familiarity with public health, primary care, community health, nutrition services or programme delivery.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Maternal and child nutrition programmes must address more than food availability. Practitioners need to identify dietary risks during pregnancy, support safe and effective breastfeeding, improve complementary feeding, recognise growth faltering, and connect families with appropriate health and social services. Weak counselling, poor growth-data interpretation and fragmented referral systems can contribute to preventable undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and poor child development outcomes.

This course develops the practical knowledge needed to plan, deliver and monitor maternal, infant and young child nutrition services. Participants work with WHO Child Growth Standards, maternal dietary assessment methods, breastfeeding guidance, complementary feeding indicators and nutrition programme monitoring approaches. They learn to interpret anthropometric measurements, assess dietary diversity, structure counselling conversations, identify food-safety risks, use behaviour-change methods and select indicators for service improvement. Attention is given to equity, household food insecurity, illness-related feeding and referral decisions.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with realistic public health cases, facilitated group analysis, counselling simulations, growth-chart interpretation and programme-planning work. Cases can be adapted for antenatal clinics, primary health facilities, community outreach teams, humanitarian programmes, schools and social protection services. Participants receive a certificate of completion and leave with a practical maternal and child nutrition action pack containing counselling, assessment, monitoring and referral resources for workplace use.

The course suits health, nutrition and programme personnel who already work with mothers, caregivers or young children and need a stronger technical basis for decisions, counselling and service quality improvement.

What you will be able to do

  • Interpret WHO Child Growth Standards using z-scores, growth trajectories and MUAC results
  • Conduct maternal dietary assessments using 24-hour recall and dietary diversity methods
  • Plan antenatal and postpartum nutrition counselling using WHO supplementation guidance
  • Assess breastfeeding attachment, positioning and common milk-transfer concerns
  • Design age-appropriate complementary feeding advice using dietary diversity and meal-frequency indicators
  • Identify nutrition-related referral needs for acute malnutrition, illness and safeguarding concerns
  • Develop nutrition programme activities using problem trees, theories of change and barrier analysis
  • Produce a nutrition monitoring plan with SMART indicators, data-quality checks and corrective actions

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Greater confidence interpreting child growth measurements and identifying referral needs
  • Practical counselling methods for pregnancy, breastfeeding and complementary feeding contacts
  • Stronger ability to discuss diet quality without stigma or unrealistic recommendations
  • Reusable tools for planning community nutrition services and supervising counselling quality
  • Improved capability to use nutrition data in reports, meetings and service-improvement decisions

For your organisation

  • More consistent maternal and child nutrition advice across facility and community staff
  • Earlier identification and referral of growth faltering, acute malnutrition and feeding difficulties
  • Better-quality programme indicators for breastfeeding, dietary diversity and service coverage
  • Improved alignment between counselling messages, food-safety advice and referral pathways
  • Practical action plans for addressing priority nutrition barriers in target populations

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can explain major determinants of maternal and child malnutrition and distinguish appropriate intervention types.

  • Life-course nutrition pathways linking adolescent health, pregnancy outcomes and child development
  • UNICEF Conceptual Framework: immediate, underlying and basic causes of malnutrition
  • Maternal undernutrition, anaemia and dietary inadequacy: prevalence measures and interpretation
  • Child undernutrition forms: stunting, wasting, underweight and micronutrient deficiencies
  • Nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific interventions distinguished using programme pathways
  • Equity analysis by wealth, gender, disability, geography and displacement status

Participants can assess nutrition status using anthropometry, dietary methods and appropriate screening decisions.

  • Anthropometric indices: weight-for-age, height-for-age, weight-for-height and MUAC
  • WHO Child Growth Standards z-scores, percentiles and growth-curve interpretation
  • Gestational weight gain assessed against pre-pregnancy BMI and clinical context
  • Dietary assessment using 24-hour recall, food-frequency questionnaires and dietary diversity
  • Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women calculation and interpretation
  • Screening referral decisions for acute malnutrition, anaemia and feeding difficulties

Participants can provide structured maternal nutrition counselling and apply supplementation guidance appropriately.

  • Antenatal nutrition counselling structured around assessment, advice, agreement and follow-up
  • WHO antenatal iron and folic acid supplementation recommendations
  • Calcium supplementation indications where dietary calcium intake is low
  • Food-based guidance for pregnancy nausea, heartburn, constipation and food aversions
  • Healthy gestational weight gain discussions without stigma or restrictive dieting
  • Postpartum nutrition, recovery, lactation demands and birth-spacing counselling

Participants can assess breastfeeding concerns and provide evidence-based support for mothers and caregivers.

  • WHO and UNICEF breastfeeding recommendations from birth through two years
  • Early initiation, skin-to-skin contact and rooming-in counselling messages
  • Effective attachment and positioning assessed through mother-baby observation
  • Milk transfer concerns differentiated from perceived low milk supply
  • Expressing, storing and feeding breast milk safely at work
  • WHO Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding support services
  • International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and conflict safeguards

Participants can develop age-appropriate complementary feeding advice using recognised feeding indicators.

  • Complementary feeding introduced at six months while breastfeeding continues
  • Age-responsive meal frequency, texture, portion size and responsive feeding
  • Minimum Dietary Diversity and Minimum Meal Frequency indicators calculated
  • Locally available foods combined for energy, protein and micronutrient density
  • Responsive feeding techniques for appetite changes, refusal and caregiver stress
  • Animal-source foods, pulses, fortified products and fats selected appropriately

Participants can recognise nutrition risks during childhood illness and make suitable referral decisions.

  • Growth faltering identified through serial measurements and plotted growth trajectories
  • Integrated Management of Childhood Illness feeding recommendations during illness
  • Catch-up feeding advice after diarrhoea, fever and respiratory infection
  • Micronutrient deficiencies recognised: iron, vitamin A, iodine and zinc
  • Vitamin A supplementation and deworming schedules checked against national policy
  • Referral thresholds for oedema, low MUAC and poor weight gain

Participants can integrate food safety, hygiene and household food-security considerations into nutrition counselling.

  • Five Keys to Safer Food applied to household infant feeding
  • Critical control points mapped from food purchase through child consumption
  • Safe water treatment, storage and handwashing behaviours integrated into counselling
  • Food hygiene risks managed during preparation, storage, reheating and feeding
  • Household food insecurity screened using experience-based questioning and referral pathways
  • Care practices, sanitation and health services linked to nutrition outcomes

Participants can design targeted maternal and child nutrition activities based on identified behavioural barriers.

  • Problem trees identify nutrition determinants, affected groups and feasible responses
  • Theory of change links activities, outputs, outcomes and assumptions
  • Barrier analysis identifies behavioural determinants behind priority feeding practices
  • Social and behaviour change messages tailored by audience segment
  • Community nutrition services mapped across facility, outreach and home contacts
  • Counselling quality standards defined through observation criteria and supervision

Participants can create a practical monitoring approach for nutrition services and programme decisions.

  • Logframes specify nutrition objectives, indicators, targets, assumptions and risks
  • SMART indicators selected for maternal diet, breastfeeding and complementary feeding
  • Data-quality assessments check accuracy, completeness, timeliness and consistency
  • Disaggregated data analysed by age, sex, geography and vulnerability
  • Coverage, quality and outcome indicators distinguished for management decisions
  • Dashboard reporting converts routine data into corrective actions

Participants can prepare a focused action plan for improving maternal and child nutrition practice.

  • Case prioritisation combines assessment findings, resources, risks and stakeholder constraints
  • Referral pathways documented for severe acute malnutrition and safeguarding concerns
  • Counselling conversations planned using teach-back, shared decision-making and follow-up
  • Nutrition action plans assign activities, owners, dates and monitoring indicators
  • Supervision questions prepared for observing counselling and reviewing client records
  • Personal application plan sets workplace actions for the next ninety days

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Maternal dietary assessment template
  2. WHO growth-chart interpretation guide
  3. Breastfeeding observation checklist
  4. Complementary feeding counselling plan
  5. Nutrition referral pathway template
  6. Maternal and child nutrition monitoring framework

Who should attend

  • Nutrition Officers — need to improve counselling quality, programme design and nutrition monitoring
  • Public Health Officers — need practical methods for maternal and child nutrition service delivery
  • Midwives and Nurses — need consistent nutrition advice for antenatal, postnatal and child health contacts
  • Community Health Workers — need clear methods for household counselling and referral decisions
  • NGO Programme Managers — need to plan, supervise and measure nutrition interventions
  • Monitoring and Evaluation Officers — need to select and interpret maternal and child nutrition indicators

Skills and tools covered

Maternal dietary assessmentChild growth monitoringBreastfeeding counsellingComplementary feeding designNutrition programme planningNutrition data interpretation

Tools and standards

WHO Child Growth Standards, UNICEF Conceptual Framework of Malnutrition, WHO Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, Integrated Management of Childhood Illness

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short technical briefings followed by applied case work from antenatal care, child health clinics, community outreach and nutrition programmes. Participants interpret growth charts, review dietary information, practise counselling conversations and analyse service-data scenarios. Small-group work applies problem trees, barrier analysis and indicator selection to realistic maternal and child nutrition challenges. Facilitated discussion compares local protocols with WHO and UNICEF guidance. Each participant prepares a workplace application plan based on a priority service or programme need.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have basic familiarity with public health, primary care, community health, nutrition services or programme delivery. Experience working with pregnant women, mothers, caregivers, infants or young children is useful, whether in facilities, outreach services, NGOs or government programmes. Participants should be comfortable reading simple tables and using percentages, but advanced statistics are not required. No dietetics qualification, clinical nutrition specialism, prior breastfeeding certification or previous experience with WHO growth software is required.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Basic familiarity with health, nutrition, community services or programme delivery is expected. You do not need a dietetics qualification, specialist clinical nutrition training or advanced statistical skills.

Bring a laptop or tablet if possible, plus any relevant nutrition protocols, growth-monitoring forms or programme reports from your workplace. Course materials are provided, and participants can work from printed copies where needed.

It is designed for nutrition, public health, nursing, midwifery, community health, NGO and monitoring personnel. It is particularly useful for staff responsible for counselling mothers and caregivers or managing nutrition services.

This course focuses on public health nutrition services for mothers, infants and young children. It covers assessment, counselling, growth monitoring, programme design and referral, rather than therapeutic diet prescription or specialist lactation certification.

Participants use recognised standards and templates that can be adapted for antenatal clinics, child health services, outreach teams and nutrition programmes. The final application plan identifies actions, owners, dates and indicators for a workplace priority.

The course runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, providing about 32.5 contact hours across five days. Time is divided between technical instruction, applied cases, group analysis, simulations, discussion and workplace planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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