Assessment of Nutritional Status among Adolescent Garo in Sherpur District, Bangladesh.

Background: Garo is one of the largest indigenous communities of Bangladesh. Adolescence is a golden period of time for nutritional promotion. Adolescent nutrition did not receive adequate attention in Bangladesh. Tribal people like the Garo are even more unaware about the importance of adolescent nutrition. Objectives: To find out physical growth as well as nutritional status among adolescent Garo children in Sherpur district on the basis of anthropometric indices. Methods and materials: This cross sectional descriptive study was conducted among 384 adolescent Garo children (boys and girls) aged 10- 18 years. A structured pre-tested questionnaire and a checklist were used to collect data through interview. Anthropometric survey of randomly selected adolescent was carried out and compared against the NCHS/WHO reference indicators such as BMI-for-age, Height-for-age and Weight-for-age. Standard methods were applied to measure the height and weight of the adolescent and BMI was calculated. Associations of nutritional status with socio-economic status, maternal working status, family type and family size were determined. Results: In most of the age groups it is notable that the mean height and weight of both boys and girls were lower than the WHO/NCHS standards. The prevalence of thinness, stunting and underweighting was 49.74%, 15.1% and 7.29% respectively. Conclusions: Significant association between malnutrition and socio-economic parameters was observed. So socio-economic status, maternal working status, family type and family size are important determinants of nutritional status of adolescent. Therefore, comprehensive programmes are required to be undertaken for the overall nutritional development of the Garo population with special focus on the adolescents.

Use of parenteral magnesium sulphate in eclampsia and severe pre-eclampsia cases in a rural set up of Bangladesh.

This was a quasi-experimental interventional study to see the role of injection magnesium sulphate in eclampsia and severe pre-eclampsia patients at community level in a rural set up before referral to the hospital. This study was conducted on 265 cases of eclampsia and severe pre-eclampsia over a period of six months from July 2001 to December 2001. Among 265 cases, 133 were in intervention group who had received loading dose of injection magnesium sulphate before referral and the rest 132 were in non-intervention group, had not received injection magnesium sulphate before admision in hospital. The number (mean +/- SD) of convulsion before treatment in intervention and non-intervention groups were 4.7 +/- 2.64 & 6.86 +/- 2.97 respectively. Recurrence of fits observed more in non-intervention group and the difference was statistically significant (p<.001). Mean (+/- SD) time taken to regain full consciousness was 12.0+9.6 and 17.4+7.4 hours in the intervention and non-intervention group respectively (p<.05). Control of convulsion by loading dose of 10 gm of injection magnesium sulphate was achieved in 94.0% of the intervention group and 74.0% in non-intervention group. There was only 3(2.3%) maternal death in study group whereas in non-intervention group maternal death was 14(10.4%) and the difference was highly significant (p<.005). Fourteen (13.7%) babies were still born in intervention group and 21(20%) in non-intervention group. The difference was statistically highly significant (p<.001). Remarkable achievements were obtained through use of magnesium sulphate at the community level at rural setting among the eclampsia and severe pre-eclampsia cases.

Magnesium sulphate versus diazepam in the management of eclampsia.

This clinical trial was conducted to compare the anticonvulsant response of magnesium sulphate and diazepam in the management of eclampsia. The study was carried out at the eclampsia unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital during the period from October, 1995 to January, 1996. Two hundred consecutive admitted patients were recruited for the study and randomly assigned to two treatment groups: magnesium sulphate and diazepam. One hundred patients received injection magnesium sulphate and another one hundred received injection diazepam. All patients of both the group were matched for baseline characteristics. Convulsion was controlled in 95% of the patients of magnesium sulphate group and 74% of the patients of diazepam group (p < .0005). The mean controlling time is also significantly lower in magnesium sulphate group than diazepam group (8.50 hours vs 9.39 hours). Patients of magnesium sulphate group regain consciousness much earlier (mean time 20.62 hrs.) than the patients of diazepam group (mean time 40.62 hrs.). No significant difference was observed in controlling blood pressure and foetal outcome. The study finding shows that magnesium sulphate has some advantage over diazepam in controlling convulsion and regaining consciousness. If magnesium sulphate can be made available in the market by local production it may be recommended to use this drug in the primary health care without any hazzard before referring to other hospital.