Child malnutrition in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

Objective: Estimate levels of and identify factors contributing to child malnutrition in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. Design: Cross-sectional survey. Setting: Rural communities from four zones of Tigray. Subjects: Three hundred and eighteen under five children representing 587 randomly selected households were included. Results: Among the children surveyed, 46.9%, 33.0% and 11.6% were stunted, underweight and wasted, respectively. Older children were more likely to be undernourished. Stunting increases from 16% in the second half of the first year to 53% in children 24 months and older. Similarly, underweight increases from 10% in the first six months to 36.5% in children aged 24 months and older. A very high proportion of the mothers (80%) initiated feeding of newborns with pre-lacteal feeds primarily butter or water. Family foods and cereal-based porridge were the main complementary foods after six months. Child age, maternal anthropometric characteristics, inadequate complementary foods, the use of prelacteal feeds and area of residence were the main contributing factors to child undernutrition. Conclusion: Undernutrition gets worse as the children grow older. The energy and nutrient density of the complementary foods are low as the foods were prepared from a limited number of local staple cereals without the addition of sugar, fat/oil or animal products. More importantly, these foods are diluted with water to reduce their viscosity. This makes the quality and quantity of the foods insufficient to prevent stunting and underweight. Promotion of traditional household technologies such as germination and fermentation may be affordable measures to improve the quality of the complementary foods. Thus, sustained nutrition education programmes focusing on appropriate complementary feeding practices are recommended.

Magnitude and factors associated with malnutrition in children 6–59 months of age in Shinille Woreda, Ethiopian Somali regional state: a cross-sectional study

“…However, in accordance with the EDHS report [31] and earlier studies in Afar region [39] and northern part of Ethiopia [40] as well as in India [15], Bangladesh [16,25] and Uganda [27], the prevalence of stunting and underweight in the current study is low. On the other hand, the prevalence of wasting is high compared to the national report [31] and other similar studies [23,24,36,38,41,42].…”

Survival status and factors associated with treatment outcome of severely malnourished children admitted to Ayder referral hospital: a cross-sectional study

“…This finding was congruent with a study done in Gondor University (Ethiopia) [15]. Another study conducted in Tigray(Ethiopia) also demonstrated that lack of complementary foods was important predictor of a child undernutrition and chronic malnutrition was a public health problem in the study community [16].…”

Predictors of Poor Anthropometric Status among Children Under Two Years of Age in Gamo Gofa Zone, Southern Ethiopia, 2015; Cross- Sectional Study

“…The possible reason for this stunting prevalence difference might be due to socio demographic, setting and sampling technique variation in which the data collection of this study was carried out in different ethics group in health care setup but the other studies were conducted in community. The proportion of wasting in different studies ranges from 10-14.8% [6,11,14] which is nearly similar with the finding of this study [16.7%]. However level of wasting in this finding was higher than study done in western Kenya [7%] [13].…”

“…The prevalence of underweight in this study was lower as compared with EDHS 2011 (29%), Amhara region (28.5%), Tigray region [38.3%], and Western Kenya [30%] [8,[10][11][12][13]. This difference may be due to the attribution of season.…”