Nutritional status of young children born with low birthweight in a low resource setting: an observational study

OBJECTIVE: Every year, an estimated 20 million babies are born with low birthweight and this number is increasing globally. Survivors are at risk of lifelong morbidities like undernutrition. We assessed the growth and nutritional status for children born with low birthweight at Mulago Hospital, Uganda. METHODS: We conducted a cross sectional study to describe the nutritional status of children aged between 22 and 38 months and born weighing ≤ 2000 g. Anthropometric measurements; weight for height, height for age and weight for age z-scores were generated based on the World Health Organization standards to define wasting, stunting and underweight respectively. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire and analysis was done using STATA version 14. RESULTS: Of the 251 children, 129 (51.4%) were male, mean age was 29.7 months SD 4.5) and maternal mean age was 29.9 (SD 5.3). A total of 101(40.2%) had normal nutritional status. The prevalence of wasting, underweight and stunting were: 8 (3.2%), 36 (14.4%) and 106 (42.2%) respectively. CONCLUSION: Six of ten children born with low birthweight were at risk of undernutrition in early childhood: underweight and stunting were higher than the national prevalence. Targeted interventions are needed for children with very low birth weight.