Prevalence of Severe Acute Malnutrition in Children Aged 6 -60 Months Admitted at Mother of Christ Specialist Hospital Ogui, Enugu, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Prevalence of severe acute malnutrition in children aged 6 -60 months in mother of Christ hospital Ogui Enugu was studied. The study was aimed: to determine the social demographic profile of severely malnourished children and/or parents of children with severe acute malnutrition, to determine the risk factors for severe acute malnutrition in admitted children with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and to know the prevalence of wasting, stunting and under-weight of children from 6 -60months. Methodology: Random selection was used to select the population studied. The data collected include the patients' mothers' biography, patients anthropometry, biochemical results and family size. The NCHS reference standard were used to determined the nutritional status of the children.SPSS version 16 was used to determine the descriptive statistics (percentages and frequencies).Result: The result of the survey revealed that there was a relationship between education attainment of mothers and child's conditional status which was significant (p < 0.05). Prevalence of severe acute malnutrition occurs mainly in families that have limited access to nutritious food and are living in unhygienic condition, which increases risk of repeated infections. Malnutrition was common in the first and second year of life as a result of inadequate breastfeeding of the child and high rate of infection. The study revealed that large households have significant (P< 0.05) influence on the nutritional status of the children than smaller household. Conclusion: In this study results indicated that malnutrition is a problem among children in the area. The prevalence of malnutrition such as wasting, stunting and underweight was high within the ages of 0-11 months and 12-17 months. Child feeding practices were inadequate. Mother's characteristics and household feeding characteristics appear to influence children's nutritional status. Effort to improve feeding practices and to relieve the constraints to the adoption of exclusive breastfeeding and optimal feeding practices will have significant effects on child nutritional status in the population.