Open J Public Health | Volume 4, Issue 1 | Review Article | Open Access
Sayed Shah Faqir Pameri* and Mohammad Eshaq Kamal
Department of Public Health, Maulana Azad University, India
*Correspondance to: Sayed Shah Faqir Pameri
Fulltext PDFBackground: Worldwide, about a half of mortalities in children are directly or indirectly attributable to malnutrition in Afghanistan, especially among children is a very high public health concern. estimated that malnutrition is responsible for 45% of child deaths among all under five mortalities, therefore, this study sought to found out the contributing factors of malnutrition among children <5 Y in Baghlan Afghanistan, this study was conducted to evaluated the nutritional literacy in mothers of malnourished children <5 Y. Methods: Descriptive HF based cross-sectional research was conducted and evaluated nutritional literacy in mothers of malnourished children <5, all children under five who brought for checkup at Baghlan PH and screened for nutrition status by anthropometric measurements those children who screened for malnutrition the interview was conducted with the mother of the malnourished child and the questionnaire was used for data collection. Results: Among 100 mothers who participated in the study their children was diagnosed malnutrition at the provincial hospital (80% Severe & 20% moderate). The 84% of the mothers were illiterate and 16% literate. Approximately all of them (99%) were jobless. The 52% of the mothers did not know about the nutrition and 65% did not start breastfeeding within one hour after birth. The 65% of the mothers not followed exclusively breastfed for the last six months. The 66% did not start complementary feeding and 95% did not continue breastfeeding for at least 2 years. The nutritional literacy in mothers of malnourished children under five-year-old evaluated very weak (38.4%). Conclusion: The research documented that, the nutritional literacy of mothers improves the nutrition status of their children and illiterate mothers could not do efficient breastfeeding, use nutrient foods, and did not use properly HFs. And their children are more prone to malnutrition. There is the need to promote and encourage female in the communities in order to empower them to know the right type of food and the right way to give it in the right quantity.
Malnourishment; World Health Organization; Provincial hospital; Nutritional literacy
Pameri SSF, Kamal ME. Assessment of Nutritional Literacy in Mothers of Malnourished Children under Five- Year-Old in Puli Khumri City, Baghlan Province – Afghanistan. Open J Public Health. 2022;4(1):1026..