Anemia and associated factors among Kuwaitipreschool children and their mothersAbstract Background: Anemia is a major nutritional health problem throughout the world.Objectives: To determine the prevalence and the factors associated with anemia among Kuwaitichildren aged 4–5 years.Design: A sample of 578 Kuwaiti preschool children (4–5 years of age) and their mothers wereselected from ongoing Kuwait Nutrition Surveillance System from September 2003 to June 2004.Mothers participated in an interview where demographic; health and nutrition information was collected.Anthropometrical data and blood sample were also collected for children and mothers; anemiawas defined as hemoglobin <11 g/dl for children and <12 g/dl for mothers.Results: The risk of having anemia was 1.8 times more in children aged 5 years than in childrenaged 4 years; a moderately/severely stunted child was 2.3 times prone to be anemic than a normalchild; a moderately/severely overweight child was less likely to be anemic; a child who was breastfedfor less than one month was 2.8 times more at risk of being anemic than a child who was breastfedfor more than 6 months; a child who was given cereals as a weaning food was 3.5 times of becominganemic than a child given meat and egg as a weaning food. Children of mothers whose age was<30 years, and children of anemic mothers were more likely to become anemic.Conclusions: Anemia remains a common health problem for Kuwaiti preschool children and furtherstudies are needed to focus on etiologies and interventions.ª 2014 Alexandria University Faculty of Medicine. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rightsreserved
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