Associating Maternal Depression To Stunting And Later Cognitive Deficits In Children- A Case Of Kitui, Kenya
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Date
2015Author
Mbelenga, Emiliana
Type
ThesisLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Maternal depressive symptoms are negatively associated with early child
development and quality of parenting across different cultures and socioeconomic
groups. A study conducted in Bangladesh revealed that maternal depressive
symptoms were associated with infant stunting, perhaps related to unresponsive care
giving. The association between stunting, maternal depression and cognitive deficits
of children has not been comprehensively studied in Kenya.
Literature revealed that the risk factors of maternal depression, such as poverty, low
education, high stress, lack of empowerment, and poor social support are also risk
factors for poor child development. Most of these risk factors are present in many
low and middle income countries and they have adverse effects on both maternal and
child health outcomes.
The purpose of this research study was to be to study the link between stunting,
maternal depression and later cognitive deficits amongst children between 4- 6 years
attending early child hood education (ECD) in Kitui. The study was guided by two
key research questions is there a link between maternal depression and stunting? Are
stunted children more likely to have cognitive deficits compared to stunted children?
The research study adopted a case- control design and the population of the study was
all children attending ECD in Kitui County. The sample size was calculated with an
alpha value of 0.05 and power 80%. The sampling method stratified proportionate
sampling. The total sample size was 168.
Stunting was measured by taking the height and age of children participating in the
study which was then scored using the WHO reference. KABC- 2 was used to test
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intelligence of all the children taking place in the study. Mothers of children sampled
in the study were tested for depression using PHQ 9-Swahili. For all mothers who
were found to be currently depressed supplemental questions to score past depression
when the child in the study was one and two years old were asked. Data on risk
factors for maternal depression and stunting was collected using a researcher designed
questionnaire.
The results showed that global intelligence test scores of the stunted children were
lower than the scores of the non stunted children. When comparing the global
intelligence scores of the stunted and non stunted children the results showed the
group mean of the non stunted children was 69.8 while the group mean of the stunted
children was 50.7. A chi-square test was further carried out to determine how the
global intelligence scores between the stunted children (cases) and the non stunted
children (control) compared. The scores of the stunted children were significantly
lower compared to those of the control group at p<0.001.The study also showed that
there was a higher prevalence of severe depression among mothers whose children
were stunted at 13.4% as compared to rates of 4.1% among mothers whose children
were not stunted.
Discussion: based on these findings, we can conclude that stunted children are more
likely to have depressed mothers than non stunted children. 67.9 % of mothers with
stunted children had mild depression as compared to only 28.4% of the non stunted
children. The study also showed that the more severe the stunting the more the
association with severe depression on the mother. Comparison between mothers with
children with moderate stunting and those with severe stunting also showed higher
prevalence among severely stunted (-3SD) at 17.1% as compared to 12.8% among the
moderate stunted (-2SD).
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Conclusion: In most societies mothers are the primary providers of nutrition and care
to young children. Therefore maternal depressive symptoms are likely to be
negatively associated with early child development and quality of parenting across
different cultures and socioeconomic groups. Child nutrition programmes that are
aimed at dealing with stunting should include an element of the management and
treatment of maternal depression
Publisher
University of Nairobi