TY - JOUR
T1 - An integrated nutrition and health program package on IYCN improves breastfeeding but not complementary feeding and nutritional status in rural northern India
T2 - A quasi-experimental randomized longitudinal study
AU - Singh, Veena
AU - Ahmed, Saifuddin
AU - Dreyfuss, Michele L.
AU - Kiran, Usha
AU - Chaudhery, Deepika N.
AU - Srivastava, Vinod K.
AU - Ahuja, Ramesh C.
AU - Baqui, Abdullah H.
AU - Darmstadt, Gary L.
AU - Santosham, Mathuram
AU - West, Keith P.
N1 - Funding Information:
The study was funded by USAID, India Mission, through Global Research Activity Award # HRN-A-00-96-90006-00 to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. VS was supported during analysis and reporting through Gates Grant GH 614 and the George G. Graham Professorship Endowment at Johns Hopkins University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Singh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2017/9/1
Y1 - 2017/9/1
N2 - Background Undernutrition below two years of age remains a major public health problem in India. We conducted an evaluation of an integrated nutrition and health program that aimed to improve nutritional status of young children by improving breast and complementary feeding practices over that offered by the Government of India's standard nutrition and health care program. Methods In Uttar Pradesh state, through multi-stage cluster random sampling, 81 villages in an intervention district and 84 villages in a comparison district were selected. A cohort of 957 third trimester pregnant women identified during house-to-house surveys was enrolled and, following childbirth, mother-child dyads were followed every three months from birth to 18 months of age. The primary outcomes were improvements in weight-for-age and length-forage z scores, with improved breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices as intermediate outcomes. Findings Optimal breastfeeding practices were higher among women in intervention than comparison areas, including initiating breastfeeding within one hour of delivery (17.4% vs. 2.7%, p<0.001), feeding colostrum (34.7% vs. 8.4%, p<0.001), avoiding pre-lacteals (19.6% vs. 2.1%, p<0.001) and exclusively breastfeeding up to 6 months (24.1% vs. 15.3%, p = 0.001). However, differences were few and mixed between study arms with respect to complementary feeding practices. The mean weight-for-age z-score was higher at 9 months (-2.1 vs. -2.4, p = 0.0026) and the prevalence of underweight status was lower at 12 months (58.5% vs. 69.3%, p = 0.047) among intervention children. The prevalence of stunting was similar between study arms at all ages. Coefficients to show the differences between the intervention and comparison districts (0.13 cm/mo) suggested significant faster linear growth among intervention district infants at earlier ages (0-5 months). Interpretation Mothers participating in the intervention district were more likely to follow optimal breast, although not complementary feeding practices. The program modestly improved linear growth in earlier age and weight gain in late infancy. Comprehensive nutrition and health interventions are complex; the implementation strategies need careful examination to improve feeding practices and thus impact growth. Trial registration The trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT00198835.
AB - Background Undernutrition below two years of age remains a major public health problem in India. We conducted an evaluation of an integrated nutrition and health program that aimed to improve nutritional status of young children by improving breast and complementary feeding practices over that offered by the Government of India's standard nutrition and health care program. Methods In Uttar Pradesh state, through multi-stage cluster random sampling, 81 villages in an intervention district and 84 villages in a comparison district were selected. A cohort of 957 third trimester pregnant women identified during house-to-house surveys was enrolled and, following childbirth, mother-child dyads were followed every three months from birth to 18 months of age. The primary outcomes were improvements in weight-for-age and length-forage z scores, with improved breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices as intermediate outcomes. Findings Optimal breastfeeding practices were higher among women in intervention than comparison areas, including initiating breastfeeding within one hour of delivery (17.4% vs. 2.7%, p<0.001), feeding colostrum (34.7% vs. 8.4%, p<0.001), avoiding pre-lacteals (19.6% vs. 2.1%, p<0.001) and exclusively breastfeeding up to 6 months (24.1% vs. 15.3%, p = 0.001). However, differences were few and mixed between study arms with respect to complementary feeding practices. The mean weight-for-age z-score was higher at 9 months (-2.1 vs. -2.4, p = 0.0026) and the prevalence of underweight status was lower at 12 months (58.5% vs. 69.3%, p = 0.047) among intervention children. The prevalence of stunting was similar between study arms at all ages. Coefficients to show the differences between the intervention and comparison districts (0.13 cm/mo) suggested significant faster linear growth among intervention district infants at earlier ages (0-5 months). Interpretation Mothers participating in the intervention district were more likely to follow optimal breast, although not complementary feeding practices. The program modestly improved linear growth in earlier age and weight gain in late infancy. Comprehensive nutrition and health interventions are complex; the implementation strategies need careful examination to improve feeding practices and thus impact growth. Trial registration The trial was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT00198835.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0185030
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0185030
M3 - Article
C2 - 28931088
AN - SCOPUS:85031685324
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 12
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 9
M1 - e0185030
ER -