Day 5

We made an early start at the hospital this morning, as Fridays are traditionally half-days in Gambia. Having had a really good week so far – we have a very good case study, whose mother and father have fully consented to participate in the project, and have both assured us that they are looking forward to us visiting their home just outside Banjul – we decided to stay in the classroom to discuss the final written report. We have a structure in place for the report as a whole, but felt we should focus closely on the main body of the report.

After a long discussion, we have broken the body of the report down to four sections: Pregnancy, Birth, Feeding, Treatment.

Encompassing all of these will also be a fifth section; Discussion. This will be a consideration of the cultural, local, regional, national and global factors that effect the four main sections. This will also include substantial consideration of the pre-birth factors that can lead to malnutrition, such as the education of the mother and father, and the mother’s health from birth.

We have organised ourselves in to two groups, and on Monday each group will approach two of the four main sections. We will then come together as one group to talk about the Discussion section in relation to Pregnancy, Birth, Feeding and Treatment.

All in all we feel the project is progressing extremely well so far. Next week we will be visiting various health organisations, clinics, governmental and non-governmental organisations and rural health centres throughout Gambia, which will give us a far better insight to the Discussion section of our report. It will also enable us to consider our case study, and thus malnutrition generally, within a far wider health context.