An analytical study of complementary feeding pattern among healthy and failure to thrive children in Boyer-Ahmad city: a matched case-control study

Children under two years of age are the most sensitive age group of children who are at risk of Failure to Thrive (FTT) due to rapid growth and improper transition from the exclusive breastfeeding to and family food. Therapeutic measures to solve children's nutritional problems, especially in infants, are often without significant evidence and indicates the need for further investigations. In order to provide evidence-based data to provide medical information on management of children with failure to thrive, the supplementary feeding pattern of children aged 6-24 months living in Boyer-Ahmad who were underweight was compared with children without growth retardation.

A total of 61 underweight children that referred to pediatric and nutrition clinics, and also from the list of malnourished children in health centers were selected and compared with the same number of healthy children of the same age and sex. The variables of socioeconomic status, knowledge, attitude and practice of mothers regarding child complementary feeding and their 24-hour food intake were assessed and analyzed using Chi Square test, independent samples t test and U Man-Whitney tests.

There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups of children in terms of energy, protein, fat, iron, zinc and vitamin A intake, but the amount of carbohydrate intake in children with FTT showed a statistically significant difference with healthy control children (p = 0.003 ). The most important factors related to FTT in children were the nutritional knowledge of the mothers (p = .001), mother's education (p = .02), father's education (p = 0.033), frequency of complementary food consumption (p = .017) and time Consumption of snacks(p = .017) by children. The variables of parental employment status, age of starting complementary feeding, type of milk consumed were not statistically different between the children with FTT and controls.

Nutritional information of mothers, frequency of complementary feeding, and food preparation hygiene, time of feeding snacks and education level of parents had the most relationship with growth of children.