Published on September 2021 | Child Nutrition

MATERNAL HEALTH AND NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF CHILDREN: EVIDENCES FROM INDIA’S NATIONAL FAMILY HEALTH SURVEYS

Introduction: It is a well-established fact that an educated woman who undergo full antenatal care check-ups, takes iron folic acid (IFA) during pregnancy, having institutional birth and whose delivery is assisted by a skilled health person, promotes maternal health and improve child nutritional status. In the light of the above, an attempt is made in this paper to relate the maternal health and education in determining the nutritional status of the children in Jammu & Kashmir. Material & Methods: We used data from the National Family Health Survey conducted in 2005-06 (NFHS-3), 2015-16 (NFHS- 4) & 2019-20 (NFHS-5). We have chosen some selected maternal health factors and maternal education to determine their trends viz-a-viz nutritional status of the children. Results: Results show that an improvement in maternal health factors and maternal education lead to improve the nutritional status of the children in Jammu & Kashmir. Conclusion: Maternal factors (antenatal and postnatal visits, iron folic acid, institutional and home births, births attended by skilled health personnel etc.) are important to determine the health status of the mothers and maternal health (body mass index, anaemia level in mothers) is a pre-condition to determine the nutritional status of the children.