A village-matched evaluation of providing a local supplemental food during pregnancy in rural Bangladesh: a preliminary study

Stevens, Briony, Watt, Kerrianne, Brimbecombe, Julie, Clough, Alan, Judd, Jenni A., and Lindsay, Daniel (2018) A village-matched evaluation of providing a local supplemental food during pregnancy in rural Bangladesh: a preliminary study. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 18. 286.

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Abstract

Background: Prenatal balanced protein energy supplementation consumed by undernourished women improves mid-upper arm circumference in early infancy. This study aimed to identify whether locally produced maternal food-based supplementation improved anthropometric measures at birth and early infancy.

Methods: A village-matched evaluation, applying principles of a cluster randomised controlled trial, of a locally produced supplemental food to 87 undernourished pregnant women. 12 villages (intervention: n = 8; control: n = 4) in Pirganj sub-district, Rangpur District, northern Bangladesh. Daily supplements were provided.

Results: Anthropometric data at birth were available for 77 mother-infant dyads and longer-term infant growth data for 75 infants. Mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) was significantly larger in infants of mothers in the intervention group compared with the control group at 6 months (p < 0.05). The mean birth weight in babies of supplemented mothers (mean: 2.91 kg; SD: 0.19) was higher than in babies of mothers in the control group (mean: 2.72 kg; SD: 0.13), and these changes persisted until 6 months. Also, the proportion of low birth weight babies in the intervention group was much lower (event rate = 0.04) than in the control group (event rate = 0.16). However, none of these differences were statistically significant (p > 0.05; most likely due to small sample size). The intervention reduced the risk of wasting at 6 months by 63.38% (RRR = 0.6338), and of low birth weight by 88.58% (RRR = 0.8858), with NNT of 2.22 and 6.32, respectively. Only three pregnant women require this intervention in order to prevent wasting at 6 months in one child, and seven need the intervention to prevent low birth weight of one child.

Conclusions: Locally produced food-based balanced protein energy supplementation in undernourished pregnant women in northern Bangladesh resulted in larger MUAC in infants at 6 months. Further research, with larger sample sizes, is required to confirm the role of locally produced supplementation for undernourished pregnant women on weight and linear growth in newborns and infants.

Item ID: 54734
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1471-2393
Keywords: maternal undernutrition, Bangladesh, low-income country, balanced protein energy supplementation, low birth weight
Copyright Information: © The Author(s). 2018 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Funders: World Vision New Zealand
Date Deposited: 25 Jul 2018 07:37
FoR Codes: 42 HEALTH SCIENCES > 4206 Public health > 420601 Community child health @ 100%
SEO Codes: 92 HEALTH > 9205 Specific Population Health (excl. Indigenous Health) > 920501 Child Health @ 100%
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