The Role of Grandmothers and Older Women in the Survival of Children with Kwashiorkor in Urban Accra, Ghana

Abstract

In this article, we present findings from field studies conducted during 1999 and 2002 in Accra, Ghana on the role of Ghanaian grandmothers in the survival of childhood kwashiorkor. Qualitative family interviews were conducted to describe the identification, intervention, and development of malnourished ethnic Ga children. Childhood malnutrition in its various forms continues to be a major cause of mortality and challenges child development in emerging nations such as Ghana. This is generally, but not exclusively, true among the poor. Efforts that promote nutrition education, or dietary intervention, have often failed because intervention requires a more sophisticated understanding of malnutrition than a simplistic relationship to poverty or the lack of available food supplies. We present evidence that survival of protein-caloric malnutrition, kwashiorkor, is directly related to compliance in nutritional rehabilitation programs, and such compliance is associated with collective familial decision making that includes the significant involvement of grandmothers and other senior women within the family.