Abstract:
Background: Malnutrition remains among the most devastating problems currently being faced by
the majority of the world’s poor. As of many developing countries malnutrition is one of the most
important health and welfare problems among infants and young children in Ethiopia, A complex set
of factors cause malnutrition. Inadequate and/or inappropriate dietary intake and infectious
diseases are the immediate/direct causes which in turn are related to a number of socio-economic,
demographic, child-care, and environmental factors among these factors one is women’s
employment which has both negative and positive effects on nutritional status of children. There is
conflicting information on the effect of maternal employment on child nutritional status.
Objectives: To determine the effect of maternal employment status on nutritional status of 6-59
month-old children in Adama town
Methods: Community based comparative cross-sectional study design was used. A multistage
sampling technique was used to draw a sample of 319 non-employed mothers and 319 employed
mothers, A total of 638 study participants were included and interviewed using a structured, pre
tested questionnaire. Anthropometric measurements were taken using standard procedures and
appropriate quality control measures. Height/length and weight of children was converted to Zscore of height for age, weight for height and weight for age by using WHO anthro software, the zscore indices were calculated using WHO 2007 growth reference. The data was entered using Epi
Data version 3.5.1 and analyzed using SPSS version 16.
Result: The prevalence of stunting, underweight and wasting was found to be 33.8%, 12.6% and
8.3% respectively. The result of this study showed that the overall nutritional status of children of
employed mothers is significantly better than that of children of non employed mothers, with AOR
(95%CI) for stunting 3.12(1.42, 6.83) ,underweight 3.06(1.61,5.83) and wasting 3.12(1.42,6.83).
Conclusion and recommendation: The result of this study showed that there was statistically
significant difference in child nutritional status (stunting, underweight and wasting) among children
of employed and non-employed mothers. Concerted efforts should be made to greatly decrease the
number of malnourished children, by educating and motivating the public, empowering women
through education and other affirmative action.
