ABSTRACT
Background: The extended care model of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) identifies knowledge/beliefs, nutritional status, mental health, control of resources/autonomy, workload/time constraints and social support as important caregiver resources for childcare. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of mothers’ caregiving resources in child-care practices in slums. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 10 slums of Hyderabad, to appraise the caregiving practices and health status of children under 5 years. Data were collected from 506 households, selected through multistage stratified random sampling, and data relating to 451 children aged 6–59 months were analysed. Four caregiving practices were studied: psychosocial stimulation, as assessed by the Home Observation Measurement of the Environment inventory; hygienic care rated by spot-check observation; and meal frequency and dietary diversity based on maternal recall. The role of the mother’s caregiving resources was examined using bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses. Results: More than 50% of the children received good psychosocial stimulation and close to 60% had good hygienic care. About 75% of the children aged 6–23 months had the recommended minimum meal frequency and 13% had the recommended dietary diversity. Mother’s media exposure (odds ratio [OR] 2.25, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.35–3.77), participation in household budgeting (OR 2.19, CI 1.25–3.83) and husband’s support (OR 2.04, CI 1.28–3.24) were predictors of psychosocial stimulation. Mother’s younger age (OR 1.11, CI 1.04– 1.18), poor media exposure (OR 1.95, CI 1.15–3.29), dissatisfaction with life (OR 1.84, CI 1.05–3.24), workload (OR 1.79, CI 1–3.18) and having no money for their own use (OR 1.52, CI 0.95–2.45) placed children at higher odds for receiving poor hygienic care. Leisure time (OR 2.75, CI 1.25–6.06) and participation in budgeting (OR 1.97, CI 1–3.86) were predictors of meal frequency. Conclusion: Mother’s workload, poor media exposure, dissatisfaction with life, lack of husband’s support and absence of economic autonomy are constraints to good child care in slums.
ABSTRACT
The purposes of the study were to analyze nutritional status, psychosocial stimulation, and factors affecting the cognitive development of preschool-age children. This study was conducted in the Village of Babakan, Sub-District of Dramaga, Bogor Regency, West Java. This cross-sectionally designed study was conducted with mothers who had preschool children aged 3-5 years as respondents. Fifty-eight children were included. The distribution of mother's educational level was quite diverse, and the largest percentage (44.8%) had senior high school education. Approximately 78% of the family income per capita was classified into the non-poor category and 22.4% into the poor category. The average mother's nutritional knowledge score was 76.7 +/- 2.5 (moderate category). Most of the preschool children (84.4%) had psychosocial stimulation scores in the moderate category (30-45). The nutritional status of children showed that 15.5% were underweight, 5.2% were wasted, 3.4% were severely wasted, and 19% of the children were in the short and very short categories (stunted). The stepwise regression results showed that psychosocial stimulation (P < 0.001), participation in early childhood education (P = 0.002) and nutritional status based on the height index for age (P = 0.028) had a positive and significant effect on cognitive development of the preschool children (adjusted R2, 0.434; P = 0.028).