Clinics in Mother and Child Health

Abstract

A Prevalence Analysis to Assess the Relationship between Maternal and Childrens Nutritional Status in North-Western Rural China

Jie Zhang, Hua Kang, Li-Fang Wang, Xiao-Yan Zhao, Rui-Ping Liu, Li He

Background: We know that in low- and middle-income countries maternal and children’s under nutritional status is responsible for the advancement in deaths and other diseases. In this background, we structured this study in order to establish a relationship between maternal and children’s nutritional status.

Methods: We conducted this prevalence analysis between December 2015 and February 2016 in North-Western rural China. We chose 2021 mothers of children (5 months < age ≤ 24 months) as study subjects. Standard and calibrated methods and techniques were used to measure the weight and height of mothers and horizontal lengths of children.

Results: We calculated the Z-scores of ‘weight for height’ (WfH), ‘weight for age’ (WfA) and ‘height for age’ (HfA) and found that the values were less than -2 for 8.2%, 10.5% and 12.6% children, respectively. In the bivariate analysis, we found association between nutritional status of children and maternal anthropometrical features. We found correlation between HfA Z-score of children with maternal height (r=0.27; P=0.006) and also between WfH Zscore of children and maternal educational background (r=0.32; P=0.001) and body mass index (r=0.22; P=0.018). Relatively better Z-scores of WfA and WfH (P<0.001 for both the cases; after multivariate analysis) for children of mothers having salary were also found. Besides, a strong association between maternal characteristics (height and body mass index) and Z-scores of HfA (P=0.012) and WfH (P=0.042) of children was also achieved.

Conclusion: Interestingly, maternal good nutritional status and good salary have been found to be beneficial for children’s nutritional status. This kind of relationship between maternal and children’s nutritional status concludes that for the betterment of mother and child’s health, maternal nutritional status as well as her guaranteed financial empowerment should be improved.