Recovery Rate and Child Growth After Supplementary Feeding in Daynile District Hospital, Mogadishu–somalia

Abstract

Somalia experiences a malnutrition burden among its under-five population. Infant growth is an important variable that indicates the nutritional and health status of children. Daynile District in Somalia is characterized by persistent terror attacks, famine, and hunger. This situation has made it hard for infants to access sufficient food and thus lead to under- nutrition. “Very little is known about the effect of supplementary foods during infancy. Few to no researchers have studied the outcomes of giving supplementary foods to the malnourished children and whether it enhances the children’s growth to a level that compensates for lean food times. The overall objective of the study was to establish the association between dietary intake of supplementary food on infant recovery and growth of children attending Daynile District Hospital, Mogadishu Somalia. A longitudinal study was carried out among 196 children (6-59 months) attending Daynile District Hospital. Collection of data was done using digitized questionnaire in the Open data kit. Socio demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, morbidity, and immunization characteristics were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies. Chi-square tests were used to define the associations between variables. The dietary intake of children (6-59 months) was analyzed using the python software version 3.7 while the nutritional status was analyzed with the Emergency Nutrition Assessment (ENA) for SMART (version 2012. ANOVA was used to analyze the physical growth of the children. Majority (73%) of the households had 2 to 6 members. Majority of caregivers were aged (69.7%) were aged 36-50 years and about 70%of caregivers were married while 30% were divorced or widowed. Slightly over half (51.5%) of the children were aged 6 – 24months, while 48.5% were aged 25 – 59 Months. “Slightly over a half (56.6%) of the caregivers were Salaried employees while (43.4%) had their main income source as Businessperson, farmers, Retired and Unemployed. The majority (73.1%) of households had an average Monthly income from all sources of above $120.” Almost all (91.8%) the households reported to have been drinking tap water while the others drank water from the borehole or direct from the river. Childcare practices seem to be dominated with less optimal practices whereby instances of unattended births at homes (30.1%) and at midwife homes (29.6%) still existing in the area. The risk of child under nutrition is evidenced by the less optimal child feeding

practices reported among the caregivers in Daynile. Cases of late initiation of breastfeeding (46.9%) and lack of exclusive breastfeeding practices (69.9%) were the most common among the caregivers in the area. The percentage of children aged 6-59 months old category wasted were 17.3 %, moderately wasted 13.3 %, and 4.1 % were severely wasted. The total percentage of stunted children in the age of children aged 6-59 months old were 18.4 %. In the same age category, more than three-quarters (81.6%) of the children aged 6-59 months were normal while 13.8 % were moderately and 4.6 % were severely stunted. About 27.0 % of children aged 6-59 months old were underweight. Information obtained from child health cards indicated that the majority all study children (61.7%) had been immunized...................