Around the world, many women continue to experience low levels of autonomy. Recent literature has reported that the health consequences of low maternal autonomy extend beyond mothers and translate into health consequences for their children, and may be an important causal factor in child malnutrition. This review summarises the current knowledge of the relationship between maternal autonomy and children's nutritional status (defined as any measure that reflects the nutritional state of the body, such as birthweight or anthropometric scores) and child-feeding practices. The review also includes both discussion of the limitations found in the literature and directions for future research. A systematic review of the literature was conducted. Results of the studies included in the review strongly suggest that raising maternal autonomy is an important goal for improving children's nutritional status, yet gaps in the current knowledge exist, further confounded by issues with how autonomy is measured and limitations of cross-cultural comparability. A thorough understanding of the consequences of restricting women's autonomy will inform programmes and policy worldwide, and speed progress towards both empowering women and alleviating the global burden of child malnutrition.

While 28% of Colombian preschool children were anemic in 2010, only 16% had iron‐deficiency anemia. A review was conducted to understand other potential causes of anemia in this age group, and to inform public health policy and programs in Colombia. Literature review methods were predefined and adjusted as needed, per Cochrane guidelines. Systematic searches of Medline, EMBASE, SciELO, and Cochrane Central were performed using a combination of MeSH terms and key words (anemia/etiology, hemoglobin) and limited by publication type (Humans, Clinical Trial, Randomized Controlled Trial, Case Reports, Controlled Clinical Trial, Multicenter Study), age (birth to <5 y), and publication dates (1990 – 2011). For example, the Medline search yielded 540 abstracts, which were independently evaluated by 2 reviewers. Of the 540 abstracts, 163 met inclusion criteria for anemia etiology. Among these publications, causes included sickle‐cell, thalassemia, nutrient intake, malaria, hemorrhage, helicobacter pylori, parasites and parvovirus B19. Conclusions regarding the potential etiologies of anemia in preschool children for whom iron deficiency is not the principal cause will be made upon completion of the literature review. Funding: ICBF, Pennsylvania State University and CIAT.