Is mother's financial autonomy associated with stunting among children aged 7-35 months: An empirical study from India.

Justice Nonvignon,Anjali Bansal,Shirisha P

doi:10.1371/journal.pgph.0000134

Abstract

Stunting depicts chronic deprivation and is a huge public health problem in several developing countries. Considering the sociocultural and sociodemographic factors of India, we aimed to examine the relationship between maternal autonomy and stunting among children <35 months. We have used the data from the latest round of National Family health survey conducted in 2015-16. The main exposure variable was women's autonomy which are represented in our study by the four dimensions- decision-making, physical mobility, financial autonomy, attitudes towards domestic violence, the main predictor variable was stunting among children. Chi-square analysis, univariate and multivariable binary logistic regression analysis were performed to find the association of childhood stunting and women's autonomy. The results were reported at 5% level of significance. All the autonomy variables have shown a significant association with child stunting at 5% level of significance. The unadjusted odds of stunting were found to be significant with respect to all the four dimensions of autonomy variables except physical autonomy. However, after adjusting for other explanatory factors attenuated these relationships and made them statistically insignificant except for women's economic autonomy (AOR = 0.91; 95% C.I.-(0.85, 0.98)) which was found to be significantly affecting the child's status of stunting. Our study reinforces that maternal autonomy is a significant predictor of childhood stunting. Hence, we recommend that policy makers, while designing interventions and policies, must address the socioeconomic inequalities at the community level while devising ways to improve women's empowerment. As it has far-reaching consequences on the nutrition status of the upcoming generations.

Highlights

According to the World health organization (WHO), Low birth weight (LBW) and malnutrition emerged as a leading cause of death among under-5 children, which translates to approximately 15,000 deaths per day [1]
Our study aims to contribute to the existing knowledge on the association between women’s autonomy and development outcomes in the context of India and developing countries in general
Children who belonged to poor households, scheduled tribe category or resided in rural areas were more likely to be stunted than their counterparts from wealthy, urban households and other castes

Summary

Introduction

According to the World health organization (WHO), Low birth weight (LBW) and malnutrition emerged as a leading cause of death among under-5 children, which translates to approximately 15,000 deaths per day [1]. There are economic ramifications of malnutrition as well [2]. Stunting or low height-for-age is a chronic form of malnutrition implying long spells of nutrition deprivation. The role of mother’s financial autonomy in stunting among Indian children. 40.6 million children remain stunted [3]. Occurrence of stunting increases the risks of noncommunicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, affecting the cognitive and physical development of children [4]. In India, stunting among under 5 children has declined substantially from 52% in NFHS-1 (1992–93) to 38% in NFHS-4 (2015– 16) [6,7]

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Conclusion