Complementary Feeding in Rural Bihar: What I Learned During My Internship
- Bipul Prasad Ray
- 18 hours ago
- 2 min read
Geetu poured boiling milk tea into a small steel glass. She blew on it to cool it down, then poured it into a feeding bottle and began giving it to her nine-month-old baby. Her mother-in-law sat beside her, watching with pride as the child drank.
Nothing about the moment felt unusual. It looked like a normal part of the day.
At first, I thought this might be an isolated practice in one household. But as weeks passed and I visited more homes, I began to notice the same scene again and again.
Babies as young as four months were being given tea. Sometimes it was just a few sips. Often, it was a full glass, heavily sweetened.
During our next visit to Geetu, ZealGrit’s facilitator and I gently asked, “Do you give tea to the baby?” “Only a little. He stops crying after drinking it. Everyone in the house drinks tea, so we give it to him too,” Geetu said.
There was no defensiveness in her tone. Just a matter-of-fact explanation shaped by daily life. I kept looking at the chai-filled bottle and nodding my head, realising that these habits are not taught, but simply passed down through generations.
It was obvious that these feeding practices needed to be addressed, but plain instructions or sharing facts rarely shift behaviour when practices are deeply rooted. As part of my internship with ZealGrit and while shadowing the ‘Project First 1000 Days’ team, I observed how facilitators navigated these conversations during complementary feeding sessions.
There were no directive statements like, “Don’t give tea.” Instead, they spoke about what appropriate complementary feeding looks like after six months. They explained the importance of continued breastfeeding, introducing semi-solid foods, and ensuring iron-rich diets.
They discussed how tea reduces iron absorption and contributes to anaemia, explaining it in the local dialect rather than technical complexities. They showed how tea fills a child’s stomach without providing adequate nutrition and how it can reduce appetite for foods such as dal, khichdi, fruits, or eggs.
These discussions happened repeatedly. Facilitators returned to the same families, speaking with mothers, grandmothers, and other caregivers who influence feeding practices.
Over time, we began to hear different responses. Some mothers told us, “After you spoke to us, we have reduced how often we give tea.”
Another caregiver said, “If you had not talked to me, I would still be feeding only tea and biscuits. Now my child eats mashed banana, roti, and sabzi.”
These may sound like small changes, but at a public health level, they matter deeply. Each shift reflects a caregiver trying something new while still navigating the realities of daily life.
This experience reinforced that changing behaviour requires understanding the context in which practices are shaped, engaging the people who influence decisions, and reinforcing messages over time. While my textbooks taught me the theories, my internship at ZealGrit taught me how behaviour change happens in practice and the immense patience and persistence it requires.
Sometimes, it simply begins by gently questioning that one sip.
