TUCSON, Ariz. (December 22, 2008) On November 4th, we announced the Consumer Wellness Center Nutritional Grant Program, offering $1,000 grants to individuals or institutions that proposed creative ways to use the money for enhancing the health and nutrition of schoolchildren or expectant mothers. The Consumer Wellness Center (CWC) is a 501(c)3 non-profit where I serve as the Executive Director. It is a non-paid position, so I derive no financial benefit from the CWC.

In response to our grant program announcement, we were flooded with outstanding proposals for the $1,000 grants. We received so many, in fact, that we have decided to expand the program to $8,000 in grants, and we'll be announcing all eight of the award winners in the coming days.

The grants are awarded based on the number of people that can be positively impacted, the detail of the grant proposal and the enthusiasm and commitment of the teacher or administrator who will use the funds. Each award recipient is asked to report the results of the grant back to the CWC after the funds have been used. Our intention is to then post these nutrition "success stories" on NaturalNews.com so that these records of what works can be shared with the world.

$1,000 to the Body and Mind Clinic and Research Center in India

Our first $1,000 award goes to Dr. Sanjeev Rastogi, MD, D.Yoga, C.Ac, GHC, Consulting Physician and Acupuncturist of The Body and Mind Clinic and Research Center, Vatsala Hospital, Tulsi Das marg Lucknow, India.

Dr. Rastogi is the medical director of The Body and Mind Clinic and Research Center, a Holistic medicine unit at Vatsala Hospital, which is a premium maternal and child-care center in India.

Maternal mortality rates due to anemia are exceedingly high in India. The Consumer Wellness Nutritional Educational Grant will allow Dr. Rastogi to create a program to teach approximately 50 low-income expectant mothers between the ages of 20 to 30 years old about the importance of "balanced and required" nutrition during pregnancy.

The program will work as follows:

Mothers will be registered early in their pregnancy days and screened for their nutritional status. They will then be taught principles of proper nutrition and given demonstrations of specific dietary preparations. Monitoring of their diet and health will continue through clinic check ups. Nutritional status will be evaluated at the end of their last 3 months of pregnancy (their third trimester).

At the end of pregnancy, each mother will be evaluated for:

• Change in nutritional status
• Mode of delivery of baby
• Any complication associated with delivery
• Baby weight
• Baby length
• Apgar score (a rating of the baby's observable health condition immediately after birth)

This study and service is expected to help prevent nutritional deficiency diseases in expectant mothers and allow the program to be implemented on a regular basis to all expectant mothers visiting the hospital and simultaneously can be expanded to other nearby hospitals to help create healthier mothers and healthier babies in India.

Dr. Rastogis’ commitment to the Consumer Wellness Center and NaturalNews is to share, through email correspondence and digital photos, the program experiences, outcome and data. We will share his experience and success with NaturalNews readers. It is our hope and belief that other companies and individuals will be inspired to begin funding programs of their own.

Following through with his promise of reporting the results of his prenatal nutrition program, on 8/20/2009 Dr. Rastogi reports:

" The Body and Mind Clinic and Research Center is happy to report its preliminary results of the 6 month nutritional awareness campaign conducted at Vatsala Hospital with the help of Consumer Wellness Center. In our study, the intervention group that was taught a nutritional awareness showed benefits in the form of increased baby weight as compared to the control group, where no such intervention was made. The increase in baby’s weight is approximately 200 gm in the intervention group, giving rise to an average of 3.06 Kg in comparison to 2.86 Kg in the control group.

This is a great job done. My greetings to team CWC for its support to a great cause giving nutritional benefits to expectant mothers and in turn to an upcoming generation."

- Dr. Rastogi

Click here to view the nutritional brochure: Caress with Care - An informative nutrition guide to pregnant woman (185kb PDF) Click here to view the published article: Evaluating the Impact of a Pragmatic Nutrition Awareness Program for Expectant Mothers upon Birth Weight of the Newborn (193kb PDF)

Congratulations Dr. Sanjeev Rastogi! And NaturalNews thanks the many sponsors of the Consumer Wellness Center who have donated funds to help us launch these important nutritional programs. Sponsors include Boku Superfood, Global Healing Center, Health Products Distributors, Inc. and others. View featured sponsors here: http://www.consumerwellness.org/Sponsors.html

About Consumer Wellness Center
The Consumer Wellness Center (http://www.ConsumerWellness.org) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit focused on educational initiatives that empower consumers with knowledge and wisdom on disease prevention, nutrition, peak mental and physical health and natural health modalities. The center sells no vitamins, supplements, foods or medical products, and earns no commissions from the sale of such products.

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