Assessment of the need and effectiveness for nutritional counselling through Swasthya Poushan webportal for mothers of under five in Mysuru

Background: Child growth and development is multifactorial influenced by the environment, living conditions, socio-demography and various other demographic factors. Infant feeding practices breastfeeding practices are important components to be addressed. Therefore, online counselling provides a good service for mothers to access useful information. Objectives of the study were: to assess the need and effectiveness of an online nutritional web portal for under five mothers, and to find the barriers in the usage of the website. Methods: It was a quasi-experimental study, for a duration of one month. It was conducted in JSS urban primary health centre, under the department of community medicine in Medhar bloc. Necessary consents from the participants were taken. An online self-structured questionnaire was assessed pre and post the intervention. Study duration was for one month. Results: The major findings from the study shows that only the educated class of mothers, i.e. 6 of the 30 mothers went through one round of online nutritional counselling. They did find counselling useful for further practices and there was an increase in their knowledge. Among those who didn’t access the website, they cited housework, not aware and discomfort with the website as their reasons not to use. Conclusions: There is surely a need for online nutritional counselling for mothers with under five, as it will provide them quick access to valuable information regarding feeding. There are many barriers, one is awareness and education on website usage and linking it to the individual needs.

Growth and Sporulation of Nematophagus Fungus Nematoctonus Robustus on Different Media at Different Temperatures.

Nematode trapping fungi captured nematode by forming different types of structure in a way to get supplement of nitrogen from the nematode, just like carnivorous plants. Fungal parasites of nematodes are broadly classified as either predaceous or endoparasitic. The genus Nematoctonus is unique in that some species are endoparasitic and some species are predaceous by established criteria. The generic diagnosis for Nematoctonus was given by Dreschsler that one assimilative hyphae which is hyaline, more or less branched, developing within minute living animals. Growth and sporulation of N.robustus was significantly varied with different temperature on corn meal agar medium. It is evident from results showing the effect of temperature on the biology of N.robustus that 200C was most optimum temperature for both growth and sporulation. With increase in the temperature there is increase in radial growth of this fungus but correspondingly there s decrease in sporulation.