Demographic characteristics and nutritional status of children aged 6–59 months and mothers aged 19–50 years presenting to Shabelle Health and Nutrition Center, Somalia—November 2019 to March 2020 (n=2142)
| Children | Pregnant mothers* | Lactating mothers† | Neither pregnant nor lactating mothers‡ | All mothers | |
| n | 2142 | 613 | 146 | 1383 | 2142 |
| Sex | |||||
| Female, n (%) | 1110 (51.8) | – | – | – | – |
| Age | |||||
| Median§ (IQR) | 14 (10–21) | 27 (22–30) | 27 (24–30) | 27 (23–30) | 27 (23–30) |
| Younger¶, n (%) | 1637 (76.4) | 437 (71.3) | 97 (66.4) | 903 (65.3) | 1437 (67.1) |
| Range§ | 6–52 | 19–45 | 19–38 | 19–50 | 19–50 |
| Access to care | |||||
| Enrolled in supplementary and/or therapeutic feeding**, n (%) | 784 (36.6) | – | – | – | – |
| Enrolled in antenatal care††, n (%) | – | 586 (95.6) | 120 (82.2) | – | 706 (93.0) |
| Nutritional status | |||||
| Wasting‡‡, n (%) | 1231 (57.5) | – | – | – | – |
| Bilateral oedema, n (%) | 15 (0.70) | – | – | – | – |
| WHZ, mean (SD)§§ | −0.94 (1.43) | – | – | – | – |
| MUAC (cm), mean (SD)¶¶ | 12.49 (1.28) | 25.9 (3.59) | 26.4 (3.81) | 26.4 (3.76) | 26.27 (3.72) |
| Low mother MUAC¶¶***, n (%) | – | 121 (20.2) | 27 (20.0) | 429 (32.2) | – |
| Body mass index (kg/m2), mean (SD)††† | – | 25.11 (5.11) | 24.82 (5.99) | 24.68 (5.35) | 24.82 (5.33) |
| Body mass index <18.5 kg/m2, n (%)††† | – | 37 (6.07) | 9 (6.16) | 110 (7.95) | 156 (7.36) |
| Body mass index <16 kg/m2, n (%)††† | – | 4 (0.66) | 4 (2.84) | 14 (1.02) | 22 (1.04) |
| Body mass index ≥25 kg/m2, n (%)‡‡‡ | – | – | – | 564 (41.2) | – |
| Parity, n (%) | |||||
| 1–2 child(ren) | – | 119 (19.4) | 17 (11.6) | 284 (20.5) | 420 (19.6) |
| 3–5 children | – | 285 (46.5) | 61 (41.8) | 563 (40.7) | 909 (42.4) |
| >5 children | – | 209 (34.1) | 68 (46.6) | 536 (38.8) | 813 (38.0) |
*Pregnant mothers defined as mothers who self-identified as pregnant. Pregnant mothers may have also been breast feeding a child.
†Lactating mothers defined as non-pregnant mothers breast feeding a child between the ages of 0 and 5 months. The child enrolled in the study was not necessarily the child who was breast feeding.
‡Neither pregnant nor lactating mothers defined as mothers who were neither pregnant nor lactating a child aged 0 and 5 months.
§Age is in months for children and in years for mothers.
¶Younger is defined for children as 6–23.9 months and 19–29.9 years for mothers.
**One child had missing data for supplementary and therapeutic feeding. Total dyads: n=2141.
††Denominator of women in all mothers column only includes pregnant and lactating mothers (n=759).
‡‡Wasting is defined as children aged 6–59 months with WHZ <−2 and/or MUAC <12.5 cm and/or presence of bilateral oedema.
§§Due to WHZ out of range, 36 children were excluded from this calculation resulting in a sample of n=2106 children.
¶¶Due to missing MUAC data or MUAC out of range, 78 mothers and 2 children were excluded from calculations resulting in a sample of n=2140 children, n=598 pregnant mothers, n=135 lactating mothers and n=1331 for neither pregnant nor lactating mothers.
***Low mother MUAC defined as <23 cm for pregnant and lactating mothers and ≤24 cm for neither pregnant nor lactating mothers.
†††Due to missing weight or height information or body mass index values out of range, 23 mothers were excluded from this calculation resulting in a sample of n=610 for pregnant mothers, n=141 for lactating mothers and n=1368 for neither pregnant nor lactating mothers.
‡‡‡Due to missing weight or height information or body mass index values out of range, 15 mothers were excluded from this calculation resulting in a sample of n=1368 for neither pregnant nor lactating mothers.
MUAC, mid-upper arm circumference; WHZ, weight-for-height z-score.