"Lancet Now Features Series on Maternal and Child Undernutrition"

Motivated by stark data regarding the burden of disease associated with global undernutrition and a growing consensus that nutrition is a topic in dire need of attention from the medical community, Lancet has launched a five-part series to address this issue. Richard Horton, Editor of Lancet, makes his case: "Nutrition is a desperately neglected aspect of maternal, newborn, and child health. The reasons for this neglect are understandable but not justifiable. When one considers specific actions to improve maternal and child survival, one is drawn to particular interventions-vaccination, oral rehydration therapy, and the treatment of infection and haemorrhage. In recent years, this portfolio of responses has broadened to embrace the health system-human resources, financing, and stewardship. Somehow, nutrition has slipped through the gap."

Horton worked with a team of public-health scientists to develop five papers addressing key points in the global nutrition crisis. For more information on this series and on child and maternal undernutrition, visit: http://www.thelancet.com/online/focus/undernutrition.