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The influence of maternal socio-economic status on infant feeding practices and anthropometry of HIV exposed infants


AS Aku
VC Nikodem

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative, descriptive, cross sectional survey was to determine whether maternal socio-economic status has any influence on infant feeding practices and infant anthropometry of HIV exposed infants. Information was collected from 125 mother-infant pairs who presented at the health clinic with infants aged between six weeks to six months. Nearly twice as many infants (49.6%) of the single mothers were underweight as compared to infants (19.8%) whose parents were married. Similarly, twice as many infants (50%) were underweight if their mothers walked to the health facility compared to 23.8% of infants’ whose mothers’ used taxis. Education and employment status of mothers appear to prevent infants from becoming underweight as twice as many infants (45%) were underweight when their mothers did not complete secondary school, compared to 23.3% of infants whose mothers did complete secondary schooling. Nearly fourfold more infants (59.5%) were underweight if their mothers were unemployed compared to those infants (14.9%) whose mothers were employed. Housing, the presence of a flush toilet or running tap water in the house did not improve the body mass index of infants. A total of 57.4% of infants whose mothers resided in brick houses, 71.9% of infants whose mothers had access to flush toilets and 57.5% who had running tap water in the house were still underweight. Infants whose mothers lived in houses with less than two rooms or where 3-4 people occupy the house had a higher risk of being underweight (54.6% and 40.5%, respectively). Sub-optimal feeding patterns are still present despite the availability of free formula feeds.

Keywords: Socio-economic status, infant feeding, anthropometry.


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print ISSN: 2411-6939