Infant feeding practices reflect antecedent risk of xerophthalmia in Nepali children

Epidemiology of anemia among 4- to 17-month-old children living in south central Nepal

“…The data indicate that at baseline the young children enrolled in our study were supplementing their breast milk diet with limited complementary foods, few of which could be considered iron rich. Research investigating the relation between feeding practices and the risk of xerophthalmia in Nepali children 1-6 years of age living in a neighboring VDC in Sarlahi District was consistent with our findings (Gittelsohn et al, 1997). In the xerophthalmia study, breast milk was the primary infant-feeding food.…”

“…The authors attribute these differences to both genetic determinants and an increased incidence in true iron deficiency in boys (Domellof et al, 2002b). Sex differences in feeding practices were not found to be present in a prior study conducted in our research area that examined the association between feeding practices and risk of xerophthalmia in Nepali children (Gittelsohn et al, 1997).…”

“…Complementary foods were introduced after 6 months of age; however, these foods were fed infrequently until the child turned 2 years old and began to consume more complementary foods than breast milk (Gittelsohn et al, 1997).…”

Vitamin A Deficiency

“…A similar parent-child intensity of clustering has been observed in Cambodia, where young children were four or five times more likely to have xerophthalmia when the mother was night blind, who in turn was nine times more likely to be night blind if one of her children had xerophthalmia [87]. This high level of shared risk of vitamin A deficiency is likely due to common exposures to a chronic poor diet [204,205] and inadequate care, malnutrition, and disease that characterize mothers [206] and children 1 Numbers of children <6 years of age in each country: Malawi (n = 5441); Zambia (n = 4316); Indonesia (n = 28,586); and Nepal (n = 4764). 2 Pairwise odds ratio based on alternating logistic regression.…”

“…Low household SES is typically associated with xerophthalmia in young children, reflected by less parental education [195,199,207,223,227,[236][237][238][239][240][241] and landholding [195,199,207,236,242], poorer housing quality [195,207,223] and hygiene [195,207,240], fewer small assets [207,236,237,239] and draft animals [204,236,239] owned, and a more frequent history of child mortality in the family [195,207,223]. Not surprisingly, women with night blindness also come from socioeconomically disadvantaged families, exhibiting a poor diet, less asset ownership, and increased risks of anemia and [213], Nepal [215], Yemen [212], and Indonesia [216].…”