The Frequency of Growth Deviations of Children Under 5 Years from Standard Curves and Its Related Factors in Zahedan

Children’s health is important as the future builders of society. Many children under 5 years of age around the world and in Iran have growth disorders. Due to the importance of growth disorder and its impact on the development, learning and future of the child, the present study was conducted with the aim of determining the frequency of deviations from the growth curves of children under 5 years of age and related factors in Zahedan city.

This case-control study was conducted in 2020 in Zahedan. The study population included all children under 5 years old, born in Zahedan between 2013 and 2020 that 784 of whom were selected by random sampling method. To determine the factors related to growth disorder multiple logistic regression analysis was used and to check the significance level, chi-square test and Pearson correlation were used. In this research, the data were analyzed with SPSS software.

The results of this research showed that 54% of the boys and 51.20% of the girls had growth disorders. Between child growth disorder and maternal chronic disease (P<0.05), maternal body mass index (P<0.05), Maternal weight gain during pregnancy (P<0.05), distance between births (P<0.05) maternal urinary tract infection during pregnancy (P<0.05), mother’s age (P=0.006), mother’s education (P<0.05), birth weight (P<0.001), birth order (P<0.05), father’s occupation (P<0.05) and father’s education (P<0.05) a significant association was found. In the present study, the average birth weight in children with growth disorders was 2.75±0.58 and in healthy children was 2.95±0.57, and this difference was statistically significant (P=0.001). The average age of mothers of children with growth disorders was 29.19±6.07 and the average age of mothers of healthy children was 27.98±6.10, this difference was statistically significant (P=0.006).

Growth disorder is a multi-causal complication. Risk factors can be corrected and prevented by developing health education and increasing mothers’ awareness and knowledge. Also, the father’s job and literacy are effective in the child’s growth disorder, so Increasing community health literacy and encouraging fathers’ learning and literacy can partially prevent growth disorders in children.