Causes and consequences of child growth faltering in low-resource settings

Mertens, Andrew and Benjamin-Chung, Jade and Colford, John M. and Coyle, Jeremy and van der Laan, Mark J. and Hubbard, Alan E. and Rosete, Sonali and Malenica, Ivana and Hejazi, Nima and Sofrygin, Oleg and Cai, Wilson and Li, Haodong and Nguyen, Anna and Pokpongkiat, Nolan N. and Djajadi, Stephanie and Seth, Anmol and Jung, Esther and Chung, Esther O. and Jilek, Wendy and Subramoney, Vishak and Hafen, Ryan and Häggström, Jonas and Norman, Thea and Brown, Kenneth H. and Christian, Parul and Arnold, Benjamin F. and Abbeddou, Souheila and Adair, Linda S. and Ahmed, Tahmeed and Ali, Asad and Ali, Hasmot and Ashorn, Per and Bahl, Rajiv and Barreto, Mauricio L. and Becquey, Elodie and Begín, France and Bessong, Pascal Obong and Bhan, Maharaj Kishan and Bhandari, Nita and Bhargava, Santosh K. and Bhutta, Zulfiqar A. and Black, Robert E. and Bodhidatta, Ladaporn and Carba, Delia and Checkley, William and Christian, Parul and Crabtree, Jean E. and Dewey, Kathryn G. and Duggan, Christopher P. and Fall, Caroline H. D. and Faruque, Abu Syed Golam and Fawzi, Wafaie W. and da Silva Filho, José Quirino and Gilman, Robert H. and Guerrant, Richard L. and Haque, Rashidul and Hasan, S. M. Tafsir and Hess, Sonja Y. and Houpt, Eric R. and Humphrey, Jean H. and Iqbal, Najeeha Talat and Jimenez, Elizabeth Yakes and John, Jacob and John, Sushil Matthew and Kang, Gagandeep and Kosek, Margaret and Kramer, Michael S. and Labrique, Alain and Lee, Nanette R. and Lima, Aldo Ângelo Moreira and Mahopo, Tjale Cloupas and Maleta, Kenneth and Manandhar, Dharma S. and Manji, Karim P. and Martorell, Reynaldo and Mazumder, Sarmila and Mduma, Estomih and Mohan, Venkata Raghava and Moore, Sophie E. and Ntozini, Robert and Nyathi, Mzwakhe Emanuel and Olortegui, Maribel Paredes and Ouédraogo, Césaire T. and Petri, William A. and Premkumar, Prasanna Samuel and Prentice, Andrew M. and Rahman, Najeeb and Ramirez-Zea, Manuel and Sachdev, Harshpal Singh and Sadiq, Kamran and Sarkar, Rajiv and Sarmin, Monira and Saville, Naomi M. and Shaikh, Saijuddin and Shrestha, Bhim P. and Shrestha, Sanjaya Kumar and Soares, Alberto Melo and Sonko, Bakary and Stein, Aryeh D. and Svensen, Erling and Syed, Sana and Umrani, Fayaz and Ward, Honorine D. and West, Keith P. and Wu, Lee Shu Fune and Yang, Seungmi and Yori, Pablo Penataro (2023) Causes and consequences of child growth faltering in low-resource settings. Nature, 621 (7979). pp. 568-576. ISSN 0028-0836

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Abstract

Growth faltering in children (low length for age or low weight for length) during the first 1,000 days of life (from conception to 2 years of age) influences short-term and long-term health and survival1,2. Interventions such as nutritional supplementation during pregnancy and the postnatal period could help prevent growth faltering, but programmatic action has been insufficient to eliminate the high burden of stunting and wasting in low- and middle-income countries. Identification of age windows and population subgroups on which to focus will benefit future preventive efforts. Here we use a population intervention effects analysis of 33 longitudinal cohorts (83,671 children, 662,763 measurements) and 30 separate exposures to show that improving maternal anthropometry and child condition at birth accounted for population increases in length-for-age z-scores of up to 0.40 and weight-for-length z-scores of up to 0.15 by 24 months of age. Boys had consistently higher risk of all forms of growth faltering than girls. Early postnatal growth faltering predisposed children to subsequent and persistent growth faltering. Children with multiple growth deficits exhibited higher mortality rates from birth to 2 years of age than children without growth deficits (hazard ratios 1.9 to 8.7). The importance of prenatal causes and severe consequences for children who experienced early growth faltering support a focus on pre-conception and pregnancy as a key opportunity for new preventive interventions.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: Research Asian Plos > Multidisciplinary
Depositing User: Unnamed user with email support@research.asianplos.com
Date Deposited: 14 Nov 2023 07:03
Last Modified: 20 Jul 2024 05:37
URI: http://global.archiveopenbook.com/id/eprint/2093

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