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The Saqmolo' Project

Approximately 150 million children—or roughly one-quarter of all the children in the world—are "stunted," or too short for their age. This has a detrimental impact on their cognitive development and ability to grow into functional adults. These children are more likely to have issues such as vocabulary deficits and deficiencies in school performance.

Written by Dr Taylor Wallace -

May 6, 2024

Study Background

Adequate nutrition during the complementary feeding period is critical for optimal child growth and development and for promoting long-term educational attainment and economic potential. To help prioritize limited public health resources, there is a need for studies that rigorously assess the influence of multicomponent integrated nutrition interventions in children younger than age 2-years in different contexts. The Saqmolo' (i.e., "egg" in the Mayan language, Kaqchiquel) Project is an individually randomized, partially blinded, controlled comparative effectiveness trial to evaluate the influence of adding delivery of a single whole egg per day to the local standard nutrition care (i.e., growth monitoring, medical care, deworming medication, multiple micronutrient powders for point-of-use fortification [chispitas], and individualized complementary and responsive feeding education for caregivers) for 6-months, compared with the local standard nutrition care package alone, on child development, growth, and diet quality measures in 1,200 rural indigenous Mayan infants aged 6- to 9-months at baseline. The study is being executed in partnership with Wuqu’ Kawoq-Maya Health Alliance, a primary care organization located in central Guatemala. Primary outcomes for this study are changes in global development scores, assessed using the Guide for Monitoring Global Development (GMGD) and the Caregiver Reported Child Development Instruments (CREDI). Secondary outcomes include changes in infant hemoglobin, anthropometric measures (including z scores for weight for age, length for age, weight for length, and head circumference for age), and diet quality as measured using the World Health Organization's infant and young child feeding indicators.

Presentation Slides (PDF)

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Select Publications

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Nutrition Research Network: The Saqmolo' Project Rationale and Study Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial Examining the Influence of Daily Complementary Feeding of Eggs on Infant Development and Growth in Guatemala.
2022. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

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Learn More

Funding for this The Saqmolo' Project was provided through an unrestricted educational grant from the Egg Nutrition Center to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation.

We are excited to continue this great work! Our team is currently seeking additional funding be to conduct ancillary studies on the infant microbiome and nutritional content of maternal breast milk. We also plan on following the infants into adulthood. Please contact me if you are interested in partnering to expand this research.