Background: In Egypt 28% to 40% of children under-five of age are stunted reflecting a significant degree of chronic malnutrition which is a public health problem in Egypt.
Aim: To show how Egyptian children who are exposed to optimum infant feeding practices early in life grow.
Methods: One thousand children aged 6 to 60 months were selected from Gharbia governorate on the basis on being exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life. They were exposed to full anthropological examination of weight, length, head circumference and assessed for underweight using weight-for-age (W/A), stunting by length-for-age (L/A) wasting by weight-for-length (W/L) and obesity by body mass index for age (BMI/A) using standard techniques. The data was computed into the automated World Health Organization (WHO) computerized program and interpreted using the z-score curves of WHO.
Results: All of the cases plotted against the WHO growth charts showed no underweight or wasting but stunting was detected in 3.3% of cases. Peak of overweight (>+2SD) was 9.3% with no cases of obesity. Overweight was commoner among males and increased by 2-3 times among the urban and educated mothers.
Conclusions: There is a high prevalence of overweight with stunting due to poor weaning food practices. Breastfeeding in the first six months of life is the optimal feeding practice for ensuring adequate growth and development and prevention of underweight, wasting, severe stunting and obesity among our population. |
