A Review of Empirical Literature on Maternal Factors and Child Malnutrition

Abstract

Malnutrition is a health complication leading to the downward economic development of any country. Children are the crucial group more prone to suffer from malnutrition than the other groups in the malnutrition circle. Identifying the different maternal factors affecting for child malnutrition is an important step in the process of reducing child malnutrition. The objective of this study is to accomplish a review of the empirical literature on maternal factors and child malnutrition by analyzing past empirical literature. The judgment sampling technique was utilized to select a sample of 40 research articles on the relationship between various factors and child malnutrition and the articles with the maternal factors were filtered and reviewed. Analyzing the data was achieved through the use of descriptive statistics and content analysis. The results found that more than 75% of journal articles reviewed have dis-cussed the maternal factors affecting child malnutrition. Mothers’ Education, Mothers’ Breastfeeding practice, Maternal Health, Age of Mother (the current age of mother and mother’s age at pregnancy), BMI of mother, Mothers’ Employability and Mass Media expose are the most important maternal factors related to child malnutrition. The finding of this study suggests the future researchers study the maternal factors and child malnutrition focusing on school children since they were paid less attention by the reviewed research studies. The results may be a guide for future researchers and scholars who are interesting in the issue and may inform the health sector where effective future intervention should be improved to overcome the incidence of child malnutrition.