Speech Development and Nutritional Status Outcomes of Complimentary Feeding Practices in 12-to 36-Month-Old Children: An Observational Study in Northern Haryana

Abstract

To study the impact of Complimentary feeding practices on Nutritional status and Speech of 12 to 36 months of well nourished children. We took children aged 12 to 36 months who visited paediatric OPD from the month of January to April 2019. Mothers of children who were willing to participate in the study were interviewed on a pre-designed questionnaire which had questions pertaining to socio-demographic characteristics of parents, infants and toddlers characteristics, breastfeeding and complimentary feeding details, infants and toddler environment (Annexure1). Weight, height, head circumference (on WHO Growth charts) and speech development of the child (on LEST scale) were recorded by the paediatrician. Prevalence of malnutrition in our study is 9.2% and speech delay is 29.2%. Malnourished children was significantly associated with maternal education (p 0.016), Annual income of parents (p=0.002), time of introduction of complimentary feeding (p=0.040), food diversity (p=0.000) and food frequency (p=0.000) (Table 3). Children with speech delay was significantly associated with change of texture of food (p 0.000). Maternal education, Annual income of parents, time of introduction of feeding, food diversity and food frequency of complimentary feeding significantly impacts Nutritional status and change of texture of complimentary feeding significantly impacts speech of infants between 12 and 36 months. Keywords: Complimentary feeding, Speech, Malnutrition