And to address the challenge, Feed the Children under the Tiwalelere 2 project with financial support from USAID has embarked on a project to provide psychotherapy to mothers who show symptoms of depression in Malawi's Northern Region of Karonga and the Central Region district of Salima.

Other studies show that 15 percent of the population has experienced depression at one point in their lives and in women, this leads to negligence for women to properly lactate and feed their children which leads to malnutrition.

Interpersonal Psychotherapy Specialist at Feed the Future, Princess Nyirenda said women who are depressed have no desire to breastfeed the child exclusively, make the right nutritional food for the child and sometimes completely neglect the health and hygienic aspect of the child.

“A mother who is a child and is in a depression mode is often negligent to the child. The mother becomes unresponsive to the child or the family. The mother cannot take care of the child because of the energy levels that have gone down. There is where we come in to support the mother deal with the depression so that she can be able to take care of the child and her family,” explained Nyirenda.

Gertrude Chauluka, a mother of three from Sub-Traditional Authority Salima in Salima says the project has come at the right time when most women in the country are battling depression and do not realise it.

At the close of a training on how to manage depression held at Mponela in Dowa, Feed the Children called on other players in child nutrition to also integrate psychotherapy of mothers in child nutrition services.