Jakarta (ANTARA) –
The Health Ministry’s acting director general of public health, Dr. Kartini Rustandi, has urged parents to monitor their child’s growth and development using guidelines provided in the Maternal and Child Health (KIA) book issued by the ministry.
For advice on monitoring children, parents can obtain the book in printed or digital versions, she said in Jakarta on Thursday.
“We need to pay attention to children’s growth and development, and for that, we have KIA as a guiding book,” Rustandi informed at a webinar on ‘The Importance of Maternal and Child Health Books for Parents to Monitor Child’s Health and Development in the Pandemic’.
Child growth and development includes monitoring the height, brain development, and the functioning of children’s limbs, she explained. Parents must ensure that their children are growing and developing optimally according to their age, she added.
Monitoring of toddlers is of the utmost importance, she stressed. Parents must make sure that their toddler’s needs, such as nutrition, developmental stimulation, and sufficient health interventions, like immunizations to guarantee safety from disease, are fulfilled, she advised.
“A nation’s future depends heavily on our success in growing children in achieving their optimal growth and development. Toddler age is a golden period. If we take this period (toddlerhood) for granted, we lose the future of our nation,” Rustandi remarked.
National Children’s Day, which is celebrated on July 23 every year, is meant as a reminder to parents of the importance of fulfilling children’s rights to help them grow, develop, and act their age, Rustandi said.
It also underlines the importance of health services security and protection from violence and discrimination, she added.
Give health the importance it deserves as without health, everything becomes nothing, Rustandi remarked.
Source: Antara News