Women's autonomy and men's involvement in child care and feeding as predictors of infant and young child anthropometric indices in coffee farming households of Jimma Zone, South West of Ethiopia

PLoS One. 2017 Mar 6;12(3):e0172885. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172885. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Background: Most of child mortality and under nutrition in developing world were attributed to suboptimal childcare and feeding, which needs detailed investigation beyond the proximal factors. This study was conducted with the aim of assessing associations of women's autonomy and men's involvement with child anthropometric indices in cash crop livelihood areas of South West Ethiopia.

Methods: Multi-stage stratified sampling was used to select 749 farming households living in three coffee producing sub-districts of Jimma zone, Ethiopia. Domains of women's Autonomy were measured by a tool adapted from demographic health survey. A model for determination of paternal involvement in childcare was employed. Caring practices were assessed through the WHO Infant and young child feeding practice core indicators. Length and weight measurements were taken in duplicate using standard techniques. Data were analyzed using SPSS for windows version 21. A multivariable linear regression was used to predict weight for height Z-scores and length for age Z-scores after adjusting for various factors.

Results: The mean (sd) scores of weight for age (WAZ), height for age (HAZ), weight for height (WHZ) and BMI for age (BAZ) was -0.52(1.26), -0.73(1.43), -0.13(1.34) and -0.1(1.39) respectively. The results of multi variable linear regression analyses showed that WHZ scores of children of mothers who had autonomy of conducting big purchase were higher by 0.42 compared to children's whose mothers had not. In addition, a child whose father was involved in childcare and feeding had higher HAZ score by 0.1. Regarding age, as for every month increase in age of child, a 0.04 point decrease in HAZ score and a 0.01 point decrease in WHZ were noted. Similarly, a child living in food insecure households had lower HAZ score by 0.29 compared to child of food secured households. As family size increased by a person a WHZ score of a child is decreased by 0.08. WHZ and HAZ scores of male child was found lower by 0.25 and 0.38 respectively compared to a female child of same age.

Conclusion: Women's autonomy and men's involvement appeared in tandem with better child anthropometric outcomes. Nutrition interventions in such setting should integrate enhancing women's autonomy over resource and men's involvement in childcare and feeding, in addition to food security measures.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Agriculture*
  • Child Care*
  • Child Development*
  • Child, Preschool
  • Coffee
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Ethiopia
  • Family Characteristics*
  • Feeding Behavior*
  • Female
  • Gender Identity
  • Humans
  • Infant
  • Male
  • Personal Autonomy*
  • Surveys and Questionnaires
  • Young Adult

Substances

  • Coffee

Grants and funding

I (the corresponding author) have received a limited funding from my host institution, Jimma University, Jimma, Ethiopia grant number RPGC/4064/2016. This funding is part of doctoral students support program which covers only travel and data collection expenses. As I am one of the eligible candidate for the support stated, I received the limited funding and my mentor and coauthor Professor Tefera Belachew received none. Details of the funder institution is available here: https://www.ju.edu.et/cphms/node/26. We declare the funding or sources of support we received during this study had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.