Association between Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) Indicators and the Nutritional Status of Children (6-23 Months) in Northern Ghana.

Stephen Kofi Anin,Alexander Kraemer,Florian Fischer,Mahama Saaka

doi:10.3390/nu12092565

Abstract

Although recommended infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices have been found to be protective against undernutrition in some settings, there is no finality yet due to inconsistencies in the literature. A cross-sectional survey of 581 mother-child pairs was conducted in northern Ghana in June 2018. The association between IYCF indicators and child undernutrition (stunting and wasting) were assessed. The descriptive analysis showed that 66.4% of the children (6–23 months) were introduced to complementary feeding in a timely manner, 69.4% met the minimum meal frequency, and 38.9% met the minimum acceptable diet daily. The prevalence of stunting, wasting, underweight and overweight was 33.2%, 14.1%, 27% and 2.6%, respectively. From the multivariable binary logistic regression, child gender, child age group and source of power for lighting the household were significantly associated with wasting. Intake of iron-rich foods, child age group, and maternal height were significantly associated with stunting after adjusting for confounders. The prevalence of the compliance with IYCF indicators was relatively high. None of the individual IYCF indicators showed significant association with undernutrition, except intake of iron-rich foods for stunting. Nutrition-specific interventions targeted at improving IYCF practices, dietary diversification and intake of nutrient-rich meals, should be adopted and scaled up to address undernutrition in northern Ghana.

Highlights

The data for the 581 study participants from the five districts used for the analysis show that they were mostly (68.2%) from the Dagomba ethnic group
Child age contributed most to the variance in wasting (Wald = 11.234, p < 0.004). This analytical cross-sectional study sought to measure the prevalence of complementary feeding (CF)-related World Health Organisation (WHO)/United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) infant and young child feeding (IYCF) indicators and child nutritional status, to identify factors associated with child nutritional status and to determine the association of the IYCF indicators with child nutritional status among children (6–23 months) in the Northern Region of Ghana, after adjusting for potential confounders
The IYCF indicators are nutrition-specific indicators recommended by the WHO, UNICEF and other maternal and child nutritional health experts as suitable, highly cost-effective, evidence-based and pragmatic parameters for monitoring and evaluating progress in child nutritional health in order to inform the development of appropriate interventions against the various forms of undernutrition [4,9]

Summary

Introduction

The global burden of malnutrition remains unacceptably high, with about 150.8 million, 50.5 million and 38.3 million children under five years of age stunted (too short for their ages-height for age z-score (HAZ)/length for age z-score (LAZ)), wasted (too thin for their weights- weight for height/length z-score (WHZ/WLZ)) or overweight (too heavy for their heights/lengths—(WHZ/WLZ)) respectively [1,2].In general, there has been a progressive decline in stunting (chronic malnutrition) globally during the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) era (2000–2015) and the current Sustainable DevelopmentsGoals (SDG) period (2016–2025), except in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South East Asia (SEA) [1].Despite declines in undernutrition globally, several low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are Nutrients 2020, 12, 2565; doi:10.3390/nu12092565 www.mdpi.com/journal/nutrientsNutrients 2020, 12, 2565 likely to miss the target of a 40% reduction in stunting by 2025 set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) without substantial improvement in context-specific interventions [3]. Ghana is a mature and stable democracy, classified as a lower-middle-income country, it remains one of the 34 high-burden countries (mostly from SSA and SEA) that account for 90%of global stunting among children under five years of age [4]. The global burden of malnutrition remains unacceptably high, with about 150.8 million, 50.5 million and 38.3 million children under five years of age stunted (too short for their ages-height for age z-score (HAZ)/length for age z-score (LAZ)), wasted (too thin for their weights- weight for height/length z-score (WHZ/WLZ)) or overweight (too heavy for their heights/lengths—(WHZ/WLZ)) respectively [1,2]. There has been a progressive decline in stunting (chronic malnutrition) globally during the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) era (2000–2015) and the current Sustainable Developments. Ghana is a mature and stable democracy, classified as a lower-middle-income country, it remains one of the 34 high-burden countries (mostly from SSA and SEA) that account for 90%. Of global stunting among children under five years of age [4]. Undernutrition has been described as the underlying cause of 45% of deaths of children under five years of age [7]

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