Nutritional and growth profile of infants with acute diarrhea presenting to diarrhea training unit in Kerman No.1 Hospital

• Main Authors: M.H.Torabi – Nezhad (M.D), A.A.Vahidi (M.D), A.Raiszadeh (M.D)
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: Golestan University of Medical Sciences 2000-03-01
• Series: مجله دانشگاه علوم پزشکی گرگان
• Subjects: Diarrhea; Malnutrition; Breast-feeding; Economic class
• Online Access: http://goums.ac.ir/journal/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1-246&slc_lang=en&sid=1
• ISSN: 1562-4765; 2008-4080

Diarrhea and malnutrition are important health problems in human societies, especially in developing countries, leading to a huge number of deaths annually. Numerous studies have death with the relationship between malnutrition as a predisposing factor and acute diarrhea, but they have yielded conflicted results. In a cross-sectional controlled study, we examined 398 infants 1-24 month-old referred to the diarrhea-training unit (DTU) of hospital. After treating dehydration, height, weight were measured and compared with an age-matched control group. In cases with acute diarrhea, 3.2% had severe, 14.8% had moderate, 48.8% had light malnutrition, 33.2% had no malnutrition according to Gomez scale. In the control group, the percentage of subjects with severe, moderate, light, and with out malnutrition were 0.5%, 2.2%, 32.4%, and 64.8%, respectively. Average weight for age and weight for height scores were significantly lower in cases with acute diarrhea than in control subjects. However, average for age score was not statistically different in the 2 groups. Patients with acute diarrhea suffered a higher prevalence of malnutrition compared with those from the control group. There was not statistically significant relationship between growth indices and socioeconomic class of the family. A lower percentage of infants with acute diarrhea compared with control group enjoyed breast-feeding as the primary feeding routine. The period of breast-feeding was shorter in infants with acute diarrhea. Nevertheless, breast-feeding neither have significant effects on malnutrition nor on weight and height growth indices. Overall, we concluded that malnutrition and decreased weight growth index might be important predisposing factors for acute diarrhea. Early diagnosis and treatment of malnutrition (Especially moderate and light degrees) are very important measures to be taken in order to decrease diarrhea and its complications.