Nursing Care in Children Under 5 Years Presenting Malnutrition

Abstract

Introduction: Malnutrition is a problem of the entire population, the most vulnerable sector is children, whether lactating or of considerable age, malnutrition can occur when the mother is pregnant due to incorrect nutrition or a lack of vitamins, necessary proteins so that the fetus developed correctly in the uterus. Objective: To describe nursing care to prevent malnutrition in children under 5 years old. Methodology: a systematic review of nursing care is carried out in pediatric patients with malnutrition from latindex, redalyc, PubMed, Scielo, among others, with 6 search strategies obtaining first-hand information. Results: 45 articles are included, of which 30 were eliminated using the 15 articles of relevance. In these articles we find a high level of information where knowledge is acquired on the subject being treated, where nursing personnel play a very important role. The success for the prevention of this disease depends on the knowledge, skills and, of course, attitudes of the nursing staff when educating a mother of a nursing child, since it is a stage where the child requires breast milk and therefore the mother must have a good diet to prevent this disease. On the subject, the authors also mention that different strategies are implemented to improve nutritional indicators. UNICEF proposes low-cost actions to prevent malnutrition, taking into account the crisis that worries some countries, especially at the Latin American level. Conclusion: The nursing staff must have knowledge about how to care for children under 5 years of age with poor nutrition since it is a serious pathology that can sometimes cause death.

KEYWORDS: Pediatric malnutrition, nurse care. epidemiology. Acting children.