Association of Maternal Height With Child Mortality, Anthropometric Failure, and Anemia in India

Abstract

More than 2 million children younger than 5 years died in India in 2006, more than in any other country, comprising one-quarter of all child deaths in the world.¹ Most recent estimates also show very high prevalences of underweight (42.5%), stunting (48.0%), wasting (19.8%), and anemia (69.5%) among children younger than 5 years in India.² Prior research on the determinants of child mortality and nutritional outcomes have primarily focused on contemporaneous factors such as breastfeeding, medical care,³ and birth spacing.⁴ Research on intergenerational factors that might also predispose a child to increased health adversity remains limited. Maternal height can be a useful marker for characterizing intergenerational linkages in health because adult height reflects a mother's health stock accumulated through her life course, especially the social and environmental exposures in her early childhood.⁵ Although a few studies have shown associations between maternal height and mortality⁶ and stunting,^7,8 studies conducted in India to date have investigated only the association between maternal height and preterm birth and low birth weight.^9-12 Previous studies were conducted in nonrepresentative convenience samples or local populations, thereby limiting the generalizability of the findings. Thus, using a large, nationally representative sample of children younger than 5 years, we investigated the association between maternal height and child mortality, anthropometric failure, and anemia in India.