The influence of maternal socio-economic status on infant feeding practices and anthropometry of HIV-exposed infants
Master Thesis
2013
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University of Cape Town
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The purpose of this quantitative, descriptive, cross sectional survey was to determine whether maternal socio-economic status has an influence on infant feeding practices, nutrition and growth status of HIV-exposed infants at Delft Community Health Centre. The aim of this study was to describe the influence of maternal socioeconomic status on infant feeding practices and infant anthropometric measurements. Information was collected from 125 mother-infant pairs who presented at the health clinic with infants aged between six weeks to six months. The WHO anthropometry calculator was used to determine the z scores of the anthropometric measurements. One hundred and twenty five Case Report Forms of mother-infant pairs were analyzed. Few infants were underweight if their mothers’ personal income or total household income were more than R800.00 per month, 12.7% and 1% respectively. 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 (55.8%) were underweight when their mothers did not complete secondary school compared to 23.3% of infants whose mothers did complete secondary school. Nearly four-fold more infants (59.5%) were underweight if their mothers were unemployed compared to those infants (14.9%) whose mother 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 higher risk of being underweight (54.6% and 40.5% respectively). Underweight children were still prevalent even if the room were occupied by only one person (50%) of 1-2 children (67.2%). All women chose to formula feed their infants after receiving infant feeding counselling. Despite the availability of free replacement feeds there were evidence that infants were not properly fed.
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Aku, A. 2013. The influence of maternal socio-economic status on infant feeding practices and anthropometry of HIV-exposed infants. University of Cape Town.