Nutritional Status of Mothers of Well-Nourished Children versus Malnourished Children at Civil Hospital Hyderabad

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To compare the nutritional status by using Body Mass Index (BMI) among Mothers of Well nourished Children versus malnourished children at Civil Hospital Hyderabad. METHODOLOGY: A Comparative/ Analytical observational study conducted at paediatric Department, Unit-I, Civil Hospital Hyderabad from March 2015 to February 2016 in total 384 mothers. Group A and Group B, both had 192 mothers. Group A contain mothers of malnourished children (whose mid upper arm circumference was 12.5 cm). Body Mass Index of mothers were calculated and classified into normal, mild underweight, moderate and sever underweight. RESULTS: BMI of mothers of well-nourished children were better than the BMI of mothers of malnourished children. Around 73.9% mothers of well-nourished children had normal BMI as compared to mothers of malnourished children (10%). Around 18.2% mothers of well-nourished children were mildly underweight comparing 41.1% mothers of malnourished children. Nearly 6.3% mothers of well-nourished children were moderately underweight while 28.9% mothers of malnourished children were moderately underweight. More mothers of malnourished children were severely underweight (20%) as compared to mothers of well-nourished children (1.6%). CONCLUSION: In this study, majority of mothers of children with malnutrition had lower Body Mass Index (Underweight), as compared to mothers of well-nourished children.

Keywords

• keywords: nutritional assessment
• body mass index
• malnutrition
• nutritional stabilization center