title: Effects of the relative importance of different factors and their degree of interactions on child growth.
abstract: The purpose of the study is to determine duration of satisfactory breast feeding in health breast-fed infants of mothers attending Maternal and Child Health Centres in the three towns of Khartoum Province. The main objective of this paper is to compare samples in terms of effects of different factors on child growth. The infants' weight and length were measured in the first few days after birth and from then on weight was measured every 2 weeks and length every 4 weeks up to 1 year. The results presented have been analysed throughout in terms of factors that affect weight gain. In Khartoum North sample weight gains were lowest in the first 3 months, but thereafter were higher and almost the same as the NCHS reference. In Khartoum and Omdurman, however, growth from birth to 3 months exceeded the NCHS standard, but from 3 to 6 months were significantly less than the reference. Level of hygiene, health of the mother during pregnancy, sex, housing, and town were found to be the factors affecting weight gain of infants from 0 to 3 months of age, while income, supplementary feeding, occupation, water, infections, and town were found to be the factors affecting weight gain of infants from 3 to 6 months of age.
authors.affiliation: Department of Home-Science, University of Khartoum, Sudan.
authors.forename: F Y
authors.initials: FY
authors.lastname: Zumrawi
mesh_terms: D001903:Bottle Feeding; D001942:Breast Feeding; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013397:Sudan; D015430:Weight Gain / Q000502:physiology*