Teresa Shamah-Levy¹, Lucia Cuevas Nasu¹, Hortensia Moreno-Macias², Eric Monterrubio-Flores¹ and Marco Antonio Avila-Arcos¹

¹Centro de Investigación en Nutrición y Salud (Center for Nutrition and Health Research), National Public Health Institute, Cuernavaca Morelos, Mexico. ²Centro de Investigación en Salud Poblacional (Center for Population Health Research) National Public Health Institute, Cuernavaca Morelos, Mexico.

Abstract

Background:  Maternal nutrition and some variables are the main determining factors of birthweight and delayed intrauterine growth of children.

Objective: To explore the association between the mothers’ biological and sociodemographic characteristics, and the anthropometry status in children under five years of age.

Design:  The population consisted of a sub-sample of 1,047 mother-and-child selected pairs from the probabilistic National Nutrition Survey, carried out in Mexico. Mother-and-child pairs included mothers aged 12 to 49 years, with children under five years of age. Data on sociodemographic characteristics, obstetric history, 24-hour recall dietary intake, and the women and children’s anthropometry were collected. The association between maternal characteristics and children’s anthropometry status was assessed using multiple logistic regression models.

Result:  Nearly 16.7% of the children <5y of age were stunted (13.5%  ≤2y and 18.8% >2y). The height/age of the children was severely affected by maternal height and birth order. In addition, the interaction between socioeconomic level and maternal schooling had a marginal effect (p =  0.09) in the ≤2y group. On the other hand, whether the family received social services and the interaction between maternal height and a dichotomy urbanism variable were significant ( p = 0.05) and (p  <0.01) respectively in >2y group.

Conclusion:  Some biological and socioeconomic characteristics among mothers have a negative effect on their children’s attained size, especially in the period between 2 and 5 years of age.

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