Assessment of Prevalence and Factors Associated with Undernutrition Among Children of Age 6 to 59 Months Born to Married Women of Age 15 to 19 Years and Those 20 to 49 Years in Damot Gale Woreda Wolayta Zone Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Child mortality in developing countries is mostly due to preventable causes. More than half of under-five mortality was due to under nutrition. It is one of the public health problems that cause child morbidity and mortality. There is no study that shows the association of maternal newlineage with child under nutrition. Objective: To compare the magnitude of Malnutrition and factors associated among children born to women aged 15-19 years and those aged 20-49 years ,Wolayta Zone,Damot Gale woreda, southern Ethiopia,2023. Methods: comparative cross-sectional study was conducted from Jan. 2021 to August. 2023. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 2121 mother-child pair of study participants. Data were entered into the Epi-Data V4.6 and newlinethe Z-scores of indices, Weight-for-Height (WHZ), Height-for-Age (HAZ), Weight-for-Age newline(WAZ) were calculated using WHO Anthro software. Then, data were exported to SPSS V23 for further analysis. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was done to identify the independent determinants of stunting, wasting and underweight separately. Variables with a p-value of lt0.05 and 95%CI of AOR was used to declare statistically significance. Result: the overall prevalence of wasting, stunting and underweight among the study population was 12.7% was wasting, 35.9% was stunting and underweight was 25.6%. However, when we come to maternal age category, there was significant difference between mothers of age group 15-19 years and 20-49 years old. Wasting was 16.5% (95%CI: 14.6%, 18.0%) in 15-19 years old while it was 8.9% (95%CI: 7.4%, 10.2%) among mothers of age group 20-49 years old. Similarly, stunting was 41.5% (95%CI: 39.6%, 44.7%) among 15-19 years old while only 30.3% (95%CI: 28.3%, 32.3%) among mothers of age group 20-49 years. Regarding, underweight, it was 30.0% (95%CI: 28%, 32%) among 1519 years old while 21.1% (95%CI: 19.3%, 22.9%) among mothers of age group 20-49 years old.