Disempowered Mothers Have Undernourished Children: How Strong Is the Intrinsic Agency?

Sujan Poudel,Dipendra Kumar Yadav,Mihajlo Jakovljevic,Rajesh Kumar Yadav,Chiranjivi Adhikari,Deependra Kaji Thapa

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2022.817717

Abstract

ObjectiveUndernutrition is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among under-five children, particularly in low-and-middle-income countries. Since women, including mothers, are the primary caregivers of their children, their empowerment status can inherently influence children's nutritional status. Empowerment is, mainly, an intrinsic agency developed as an affective domain trajectory or attitude that guides the skill or behavior. This study aimed to assess the association between women's empowerment and nutritional status of their children.MethodsA cross-sectional study was carried out among 300 mothers having children aged 6–59 month in rural municipalities of Kaski district in Nepal. Face to face interview and various anthropometric measurements were used to collect data. Chi-square test was performed to assess the association between women's empowerment and children's nutritional status, and multivariable logistic regression was used to assess the strength of association.ResultsOf 300 mothers having 6–59 months' children, nearly half (49%) were highly empowered while around 38% children were in poor nutritional status. More than one-fourth (26.7%) children were stunted, 7% were wasted, 17.7% were underweight, and in overall, nearly 38% were in poor nutrition. There was a five-fold increase in odds of wasting, thirty-fold increase in odds of stunting, and twenty-nine-fold increase in odds of underweight among children whose mothers had low empowerment status compared to their counterparts.ConclusionOverall, this study exhibited that maternal empowerment strongly affected children's nutritional status, especially stunting and underweight. Thus, intrinsic factor, mainly education and community membership are suggested to empower them for making their own decisions. Interventions aiming to improve nutritional status of children should include women empowerment incorporating dimensions of material resources. Further empirical evidence is required from trials and cohort studies.

Highlights

Health, physical growth and development, academic performance, and progress in life are determined by the nutritional status of children [1]
Development assistance for health (DAH) provided to the largest multilateral agencies by donors among wealthiest OECD countries appears to be shrinking [6], yet national spending on health and social insurance including early childhood support continues to grow across low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) [7]
From a list of 6,023 eligible children in rural municipalities, sample size for each of the 25 clusters have been calculated by probability proportional to size (PPS) technique

Summary

Introduction

Physical growth and development, academic performance, and progress in life are determined by the nutritional status of children [1]. The lack of appropriate care for both women and children is one of the underlying factors of undernutrition among children [4] These underlying trends have been largely affected by health expenditures in low and middle income countries (LMICs) in recent decades [5]. Development assistance for health (DAH) provided to the largest multilateral agencies by donors among wealthiest OECD countries appears to be shrinking [6], yet national spending on health and social insurance including early childhood support continues to grow across LMICs [7] Leaders in such a growth across the Global South remain the emerging markets such as the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) [8] and the countries of emerging seven markets (EM7) [9]

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