Nurturing Communities

​Mead Johnson is expanding the reach of our philanthropic programs.
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A Child’s Best Start

Recognizing that Globally, millions of children live without parental care, with most living in orphanages, group homes and institutions. While their caregivers work very hard to provide optimal care to these children, science-based training and resources on nutrition and feeding practices to help identify nutrition deficiencies are often unavailable.

Recognizing that proper nutrition is critical to every child’s growth and development, the Mead Johnson Nutrition Foundation and The Joint Council for International Children’s Services started a program dedicated to improving nutritional care for children living in vulnerable conditions around the world.

The program, called A Child’s Best Start, identifies best practices for nutrition care and provides important nutrition information to individual caregivers through training on the ground in facilities located everywhere from major cities in China to small towns in rural Mexico. We are also working with The SPOON Foundation, a member of the Joint Council network with expertise in orphan nutrition, to establish and lead the program’s Global Nutrition Working Group of medical experts who will provide guidance to the development of program materials.

In addition to implementing in-country training programs and support for individual organizations that care for vulnerable children, a critical element of A Child’s Best Start is OrphanNutrition.org. This website is an international portal containing best practices and a free library of resources to help address nutrition issues specific to this population of children.
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Phenylketonuria Special Milk Powder Subsidy Program

To help children born in China with phenylketonuria (PKU) - a congenital metabolic disease that can impact the brain and nervous system - Mead Johnson, in partnership with The Ministry of Health of the People's Republic of China, launched the PKU Special Milk Powder Subsidy Program to provide nutritional assistance to children with PKU in 22 provinces.
 
In order to help more PKU children from poverty stricken families get proper treatment, the company in 2010 provided a one-time additional provision of free Phenyl-Free 1® formula to the project, worth over RMB 3 million (nearly half a million dollars), to extend the range of the subsidy to PKU children around the country. The company also arranged for two experts from the United States to provide trainings on PKU medical and nutritional management to Chinese health care providers.
 
In addition, Mead Johnson and The China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) jointly established the “Bloom of Hope Fund," the first fund of its kind in China to help children diagnosed with PKU. The Bloom of Hope Fund will act as a sustainable platform where others can join to raise awareness of PKU and help children with the disease.
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Un Kilo de Ayuda (One Kilogram of Help)

Mead Johnson has been working with Un Kilo de Ayuda (UKA) in Mexico to pursue the goal of ending child undernourishment in the country by 2023. UKA’s approach is focused on long-term improvement through nutrition, rather than short-term food aid. For instance, it runs a program to provide anemia detection through biannual monitoring of hemoglobin and corrective treatments. Mead Johnson has helped approximately 300,000 children through the UKA programs through donation and employee volunteer activities, and the company has provided more than one million bottles of Fer-in-Sol iron supplement drops to help children with anemia.

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Cleft Bottles Program

In China, nearly one out of every 500 babies is born with cleft lip and palate, a birth defect affecting the upper lip and roof of the mouth that prevents the ability to feed properly. Many of these children are abandoned, residing in child welfare facilities and are at high risk for malnutrition.

Infants with this condition depend on special feeding practices and dedicated caregivers for their survival. To support the nutritional wellbeing of these children, the Mead Johnson Nutrition Foundation is collaborating with non-profit organizations Joint Council on International Children’s Services and the Love Without Boundaries Foundation, in addition to Chinese government officials, to distribute 8,000 specially designed cleft palate bottles to more than 1,000 child welfare facilities in China. The program also includes training materials to educate caregivers on successful feeding practices that give these children access to nutrients for healthy development and the best start in life.

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