Mothers' Nutritional Knowledge, Complementary Feeding Practices and Nutritional Status of Children in Lagos State, Nigeria

An abstract of a study by Augustina et al examining the effect of mothers' nutritional knowledge and complementary feeding practices on the nutritional status of children in Lagos Nigeria is presented. The majority of the mothers had a fairly good nutritional knowledge. Their main source of information was the childcare centers. Their complementary feeding practices were not adequate. About 16% of them introduced other foods before the child was 4 months old. Nutritional assessment by World Health Organization criteria (weight for age, weight for height, and height for age) revealed that 4 (1.3%) of the infants were underweight, whereas 49 (21%) of them were stunted (with 6.3% being severely stunted). The mothers' nutritional knowledge had a positive influence on the nutritional status of the children.