Causes and Consequences of Child Growth Faltering in Low-Resource Settings

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Citation

Mertens, Andrew; Benjamin-Chung, Jade; Colford, John M.; Coyle, Jeremy; van der Laan, Mark J.; Hubbard, Alan E.; Rosete, Sonali; Malenica, Ivana; Hejazi, Nima; & Sofrygin, Oleg, et al. (2023). Causes and Consequences of Child Growth Faltering in Low-Resource Settings. Nature, 621(7979), 568-576. PMCID: PMC10511328

Abstract

Growth faltering in children (low length for age or low weight for length) during the first 1,000 days of life (from conception to 2 years of age) influences short-term and long-term health and survival. Interventions such as nutritional supplementation during pregnancy and the postnatal period could help prevent growth faltering, but programmatic action has been insufficient to eliminate the high burden of stunting and wasting in low- and middle-income countries. Identification of age windows and population subgroups on which to focus will benefit future preventive efforts. Here we use a population intervention effects analysis of 33 longitudinal cohorts (83,671 children, 662,763 measurements) and 30 separate exposures to show that improving maternal anthropometry and child condition at birth accounted for population increases in length-for-age z-scores of up to 0.40 and weight-for-length z-scores of up to 0.15 by 24 months of age. Boys had consistently higher risk of all forms of growth faltering than girls. Early postnatal growth faltering predisposed children to subsequent and persistent growth faltering. Children with multiple growth deficits exhibited higher mortality rates from birth to 2 years of age than children without growth deficits (hazard ratios 1.9 to 8.7). The importance of prenatal causes and severe consequences for children who experienced early growth faltering support a focus on pre-conception and pregnancy as a key opportunity for new preventive interventions.

URL

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06501-x

Reference Type

Journal Article

Year Published

2023

Journal Title

Nature

Author(s)

Mertens, Andrew
Benjamin-Chung, Jade
Colford, John M.
Coyle, Jeremy
van der Laan, Mark J.
Hubbard, Alan E.
Rosete, Sonali
Malenica, Ivana
Hejazi, Nima
Sofrygin, Oleg
Cai, Wilson
Li, Haodong
Nguyen, Anna
Pokpongkiat, Nolan N.
Djajadi, Stephanie
Seth, Anmol
Jung, Esther
Chung, Esther O.
Jilek, Wendy
Subramoney, Vishak
Hafen, Ryan
Häggström, Jonas
Norman, Thea
Brown, Kenneth H.
Christian, Parul
Arnold, Benjamin F.
Abbeddou, Souheila
Adair, Linda S.
Ahmed, Tahmeed
Ali, Asad
Ali, Hasmot
Ashorn, Per
Bahl, Rajiv
Barreto, Mauricio L.
Becquey, Elodie
Begín, France
Bessong, Pascal Obong
Bhan, Maharaj Kishan
Bhandari, Nita
Bhargava, Santosh K.
Bhutta, Zulfiqar A.
Black, Robert E.
Bodhidatta, Ladaporn
Carba, Delia
Checkley, William
Christian, Parul
Crabtree, Jean E.
Dewey, Kathryn G.
Duggan, Christopher P.
Fall, Caroline H. D.
Faruque, Abu Syed Golam
Fawzi, Wafaie W.
da Silva Filho, José Quirino
Gilman, Robert H.
Guerrant, Richard L.
Haque, Rashidul
Hasan, S. M. Tafsir
Hess, Sonja Y.
Houpt, Eric R.
Humphrey, Jean H.
Iqbal, Najeeha Talat
Jimenez, Elizabeth Yakes
John, Jacob
John, Sushil Matthew
Kang, Gagandeep
Kosek, Margaret
Kramer, Michael S.
Labrique, Alain
Lee, Nanette R.
Lima, Aldo Ângelo Moreira
Mahopo, Tjale Cloupas
Maleta, Kenneth
Manandhar, Dharma S.
Manji, Karim P.
Martorell, Reynaldo
Mazumder, Sarmila
Mduma, Estomih
Mohan, Venkata Raghava
Moore, Sophie E.
Ntozini, Robert
Nyathi, Mzwakhe Emanuel
Olortegui, Maribel Paredes
Ouédraogo, Césaire T.
Petri, William A.
Premkumar, Prasanna Samuel
Prentice, Andrew M.
Rahman, Najeeb
Ramirez-Zea, Manuel
Sachdev, Harshpal Singh
Sadiq, Kamran
Sarkar, Rajiv
Sarmin, Monira
Saville, Naomi M.
Shaikh, Saijuddin
Shrestha, Bhim P.
Shrestha, Sanjaya Kumar
Soares, Alberto Melo
Sonko, Bakary
Stein, Aryeh D.
Svensen, Erling
Syed, Sana
Umrani, Fayaz
Ward, Honorine D.
West, Keith P.
Wu, Lee Shu Fune
Yang, Seungmi
Yori, Pablo Penataro
The Ki Child Growth, Consortium, [
Linda Adair
, member]

Article Type

Regular

PMCID

PMC10511328

Continent/Country

LMICs

ORCiD

Chung, E - 0000-0002-2866-949X
Adair - 0000-0002-3670-8073