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. 2019 Mar 20;19(1):83.
doi: 10.1186/s12887-019-1459-x.

Maternal characteristics and nutritional status among 6-59 months of children in Ethiopia: further analysis of demographic and health survey

Zufan Bitew Dessie  1 , Melkitu Fentie  2 , Zegeye Abebe  3 , Tadesse Awoke Ayele  4 , Kindie Fentahun Muchie  5
Affiliations

Maternal characteristics and nutritional status among 6-59 months of children in Ethiopia: further analysis of demographic and health survey

Zufan Bitew Dessie et al. BMC Pediatr. .

Abstract

Background: Nutritional status of children influences their health status, which is a key determinant of human development. In Ethiopia, 28% of child mortality is caused by under nutrition. There is also some controversial evidence about the association between maternal characteristics and nutritional status of under five children. This study was aimed to assess the association between maternal characteristics and nutritional status among 6-59 months of children in Ethiopia.

Methods: This was furtheranalysis ofthe 2016 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Surveyusing7452 children.. Generalized estimating equations was used to quantify the association of maternal factors with stunting and wasting. Both crude Odds ratio and adjusted odds ratio with the corresponding 95% confidence intervals were reported to show the strength of association. In multivariable analysis, variables with a p-value of < 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Results: The higher odds of stunting were found among children whose mothers had no education (AOR = 1.58; 95%CI: 1.25, 2.0) and primary education (AOR = 1.42; 95%CI: 1.13, 1.78), underweight nutritional status (AOR = 1.59; 95%CI: 1.27, 2.0), and anemia (AOR = 1.16; 95%CI: 1.04, 1.30). Similarly, higher odds of wasting were observed among children whose mother had underweight nutritional status (AOR = 2.34; 95%CI: 1.65, 3.38), delivered at home (AOR = 1.31; 95%CI: 1.07, 1.60), and lower than 24 months birth interval (AOR = 1.31; 95%CI: 1.04, 1.64).

Conclusion: Maternal education, nutritional status, and anemia were associated with child stunting. Also maternal nutritional status, place of delivery, and preceding birth interval were associated with wasting. Therefore, there is needed to enhance the nutritional status of children by improving maternal underweight nutritional status, maternal educational and maternal anemia status, prolonging birth interval, and promoting health facility delivery.

Keywords: Children; DHS; Ethiopia; GEE; Maternal characteristics; Stunting; Wasting.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethical clearance for the survey was provided by the Ethiopian Health andNutrition Research Institute (EHNRI) Review Board, the National Research Ethics Review Committee (NRERC) at the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Institutional Review Board of ICF International, and the CDC. All respondents to the survey provided verbal informed consent; consent for children was obtained through the parents, caregivers or guardians. Ethical clearance for this study was obtained from ethical review committee of Institute of public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar. The authors requested the Measure DHS by briefly stating the objectives of this analysis and access was granted to use the data (http://dhsprogram.com/data/available-datasets.cfm).

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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