Objectives
To determine nutritional status and anaemia of children aged 6-23 months and mother’s complementary feeding practice in midland area, Vietnam in order to have proper intervention
Methods
A cross-sectional survey with 295 children aged 6-23 months has been done. The data collection: frequent consumption of food groups in 24 previous hours, weight, height, haemoglobin concentration of children has been collected to determine mother’s feeding practices, WAZ, HAZ, WHZ as well as prevalence of underweight, stunting, wasting and anaemia of children aged 6-23 months. Diversity of food was considered as combination of 4 group’s food or more.
Results
The average age of children was 14.9 ± 5.1 months. About 68.8% of mothers feed their children complementary foods before 6 months. The mothers fed the 7 food groups such as grains (100%), meats (75.4%), legumes (28.6%), dairy or dairy product (60.3%), eggs (33.2%), orange colour fruits or dark leafy vegetables and other vegetable (61.3%). Prevalence of mothers combined 4 food groups had accounted for 68.8% and 57.7% of mother feed 4 food adding oil or fat. The average of WAZ, HAZ and WHZ was -1.00 ± 0.85 SD; -1.05 ± 0.95 SD and -0.63 ± 0.91 SD respectively. The prevalence of underweight, stunting, wasting accounted for 12.6; 19.6%; 5.5%. Haemoglobin concentration of children was 108.7 ± 10.9 g/L and prevalence of anaemia was 52, 3%.
Conclusions
Complementary feeding practice of mothers still be poor. The prevalence of children suffered from anemia was high (52.3%).
