Wasting
Sakina did not know her age. She never went to a school. She had been married for three years. Her husband was a labourer. They lived in a joint family with her in-laws in a house which had electricity but no gas connection. They cooked on wood collected from fields adjacent to a canal. The tap water was deemed good for drinking because of the proximity of the canal. They did not boil it before use. The nearest government health facility was about 5km from their home. Sakina described her health and her husband’s health as ‘not the best’. Her husband had hurt his back at work, something that bothered him a lot. Their son, Sanval was just about a year old. He was delivered at a hospital through C-section. Sakina could start breastfeeding him only on the 8 th day of his birth. Before that he was given packaged milk because, she said ‘I was told at the hospital to feed him milkpack’. Sanval was also not weighed at the time of birth but Sakina believes that his weakness was visi...