Home- and community-based growth monitoring to reduce early life growth faltering: an open-label, cluster-randomized controlled trial

• Published in: The American journal of clinical nutrition 2017-10, Vol.106 (4), p.1070-1077
• Main Authors: Fink, Günther, Levenson, Rachel, Tembo, Sarah, Rockers, Peter C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Age; Body Height; Body Weight; Breast Feeding; Children; Children & youth; Clinical trials; Communities; Community Health Services; Consortia; Developing Countries; Diet; Dietary Proteins - administration & dosage; Dietary Supplements; Disclosure; Feeding Behavior; Female; Fetuses; Growth; Growth Disorders - diet therapy; Growth Disorders - prevention & control; Growth, Development, and Pediatrics; Heat affected zone; Height; Humans; LDCs; Low cost; Middle income; Monitoring; Monitoring, Physiologic; Neurodevelopment; Nutrient solutions; Parents; Pregnancy; Probability; Proteins; Young Adult; Zambia
• ISSN: 0002-9165; 1938-3207
• DOI: 10.3945/ajcn.117.157545

Abstract Background: Despite the continued high prevalence of faltering growth, height monitoring remains limited in many low- and middle-income countries. Objective: The objective of this study was to test whether providing parents with information on their child's height can improve children's height and developmental outcomes. Design: Villages in Chipata District, Zambia (n = 127), were randomly assigned with equal probability to 1 of 3 groups: home-based growth monitoring (HBGM), community-based growth monitoring including nutritional supplementation for children with stunted growth (CBGM+NS), and control. Primary study outcomes were individual height-for-age z score (HAZ) and overall child development assessed with the International Fetal and Newborn Growth Consortium for the 21st Century Neurodevelopment Assessment tool. Secondary outcomes were weight-for-age z score (WAZ), protein consumption, breastfeeding, and general dietary diversity. Results: We enrolled a total of 547 children with a median age of 13 mo at baseline. Estimated mean difference (β) in HAZ was 0.127 (95% CI: −0.107, 0.361) for HBGM and −0.152 (95% CI: −0.341, 0.036) for CBGM+NS. HBGM had no impact on child development [β: −0.017 (95% CI: −0.133, 0.098)]; CBGM+NS reduced overall child development scores by −0.118 SD (95% CI: −0.230, −0.006 SD). Both interventions had larger positive effects among children with stunted growth at baseline, with estimated interaction effects of 0.503 (95% CI: 0.160, 0.846) and 0.582 (95% CI: 0.134, 1.030) for CBGM+NS and HBGM, respectively. HBGM increased mean WAZ [β = 0.183 (95% CI: 0.037, 0.328)]. Both interventions improved parental reports of children's protein intake. Conclusions: The results from this trial suggest that growth monitoring has a limited effect on children's height and development, despite improvements in self-reported feeding practices. HBGM had modest positive effects on children with stunted growth. Given its relatively low cost, this intervention may be a cost-effective tool for increasing parental efforts toward reducing children's physical growth deficits. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02242539.