Growth retardation among children in southern Iran: a 7-year population based cohort study
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Growth retardation among children in southern Iran: a 7-year population based cohort study Mohammad Javad Fatemi1*, Mostafa Dianatinasab2*, Golnaz Sharifnia3, Hossein Moravej4 and Mohammad Fararouei5
Abstract Background: Growth retardation is a common health problem, which requires early prevention and detection. This study was conducted to define the approximate age at which stunting starts among the Iranian boys and girls. Method: The second phase of a population-based retrospective cohort nested case-control study on 400 children who were followed from birth to 7 years of age. This study was performed to define the pattern of growth among stunted and normal children and to reveal the age at which stunting starts in each gender. Results: Of the selected participants, 53% were girls. Also, about 18% of the children registered by the selected health centers were defined as stunted (under the 3rd percentile of the corresponding sex-age NCHS/WHO growth reference). For boys, the height was relatively similar between the two groups until the age of 6 months at which the difference in height between normal and stunted children starts to become significantly large (difference = 0.70 cm, P = 0.04). For girls, height in the two groups is relatively similar until the age of 9 months at which the difference starts to become significantly large (difference = 0.97 cm, P = 0.01). No significant difference in the weight of the girls was observed between the normal and stunted groups during the study period (difference = 283.21 g, P > 0.05). However, boys from the stunted group were lighter since almost the same time that they started to become significantly shorter (difference = 1265.19 g, P = 0.001). Conclusions: Soon after birth (at about the 6 months of age), the growth pattern of some (stunted) children starts to stumble and divert from normal. The sixth month of age is the age at which mothers start weaning with withdrawing breast milk and start supplementary foods and adult diet. A specially designed study is needed to understand the actual reason for observing such a phenomenon among Iranian children. Keywords: Growth retardation, Children, Height, Breastfeeding
* Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected] 1 Student research center for health sciences, department of epidemiology, school of health, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran 2 Center for Health Related Social and Behavioral Sciences Research, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material i
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