Maternal nutritional knowledge and child nutritional status in the Volta Region of Ghana

Abstract

The relationship between mother's nutritional knowledge, maternal education, and child nutritional status (weight-for-age) was the subject of investigation in this study. The data were collected in Ghana on 55 well nourished and 55 malnourished mother-child pairs. A questionnaire designed to collect data on mother's knowledge and practices related to child care and nutrition was administered to the mothers. Data on mother's demographic and socio-economic characteristics as well as child anthropometric data were also collected. A nutrition knowledge score was calculated based on mother's responses to the nutrition related items. Bivariate analysis gave significant associations between child nutritional status and the following variables: time of initiating of breastfeeding, mother's knowledge of importance of colostrum and whether colostrum was given to child, age of introduction of supplementary food, and mother's knowledge about causes of kwashiorkor. The two groups also showed significant differences in their nutrition knowledge scores. Maternal formal education, and marital status were also found to be associated with child nutritional status in bivariate analyses. Further analysis with logistic regression revealed that maternal nutrition knowledge was independently associated with nutritional status after the effects of other significant variables were controlled for. Maternal education on the other hand was not found to be independently associated with nutritional status. These results imply that mother's practical knowledge about nutrition may be more important than formal maternal education for child nutrition outcome.

Major determinants of severe acute malnutrition in under five children in jimma town of south west ethiopia

“…The similar observations reported from North African regions [8][9][10][11] , Southeast Asian [13][14][15] and Latin American countries (14). In a case-control study in Bangladesh, the maternal illiteracy was associated with a fourfold increase in the risk of severe acute malnutrition in their children [14] ; which is higher than the findings of the present study.…”

Effect of nutrition education on the knowledge scores of urban households with home gardens in Morogoro, Tanzania

“…Here, the respondents improved their practical knowledge, in terms of being better able to name foods rich in the respective nutrients. This is in accordance with studies which showed that practical nutrition knowledge played a greater role in the nutrition outcomes as compared to the education level of the mother [36,37].…”

Determinants for Acute Malnutrition among Under-Five Children at Public Health Facilities in Gedeo Zone, Ethiopia: A Case-Control Study

“…Children whose mothers are illiterate were 4 fold at risk to have severe acute malnutrition as compared to those children have literate mothers. Similar findings were revealed at studies done in Shashogo Woreda, Southern Ethiopia [22], Gonder, Ethiopia [17], Oromia region, West Ethiopia [14], Somali Region, Ethiopia [12], in Ghana [24], Gambia and Nigeria [18], Bangladesh [25] and Granada, Nicaragua [26]. This could be due to illiterate mothers have less perception about the nutritional need of their children and most of them have poor socio-economic status.…”