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Background Early life nutrition plays a critical role in the development of better health and nutrition in adulthood. However, assessing the nutritional status of Bangladeshi children and adolescents through measurement of body composition using skinfold thickness is barely studied. The current study aims to determine children’s body composition and nutritional status, and contributing factors among children aged 2 to 15 years in the northern part of Bangladesh. Methods This is a descriptive cross-sectional study done in Bangladesh. Anthropometric methods, including multiple skinfold thickness and basic anthropometric and socio-demographic characteristics, were used. Body composition was calculated from multiple skinfold thicknesses using the standard regression equation. Nutritional status was measured using Z score according to WHO 2007 reference standard. A total of 330 children from Naogaon, Bogra and Kurigram districts in Bangladesh were examined from April 2019 to September 2019. Results The Nutritional status of 2–15 years old child is exceedingly poor in the northern part of Bangladesh. Fat mass and fat-free mass were higher among children from Kurigram district than from Bogra and Naogaon district. Body fat percentages and arm fat area were greater among female children than males. The overall prevalence of stunting, underweight and wasting was around 25%, 32% and 29%, respectively, and the rate was higher among girls and children aged 2–5 years. The average SD score for weight-for-age, height-for-age, and BMI-for-age was -1.295, -0.937 and -1.009. The median weight-for-age and height-for-age Z scores of boys and girls were below the WHO reference percentile rank. Girls were twice (OR:1.951, CI:1.150–3.331) as likely to suffer from being underweight than boys. Children who don’t practice handwashing are three times (OR:3.531, CI:1.657–7.525) more likely to be underweight. Children become underweight and stunted when their family income is not sufficient to maintain their nutritional requirements. Conclusions The children of the three northern districts had a poor nutritional status, and family income was the potential contributing factor. Therefore, interventions like the promotion of income-generating activities and integrated approaches to ensuring food diversification could be an option to address the nutritional problem of children of the three northern districts of Bangladesh.

Thyroid uptake and scintigraphy using Tc-99m pertechnetate has proven to be more advantageous than with I-131 iodide, since the images have better quality, the procedure is faster and the patient is submitted to a lower radiation dose. Tc-99m has been used worldwide to study the thyroid function because of a number of advantages such as short half-life, short biological half-life, short effective half-life, short retention in gland and no Beta (β-) radiation, providing low dose to gland (10,000 times less than that of I-131), low cost and readily availability. Otherwise, I-131 with its high radiation burden (1-3 rad/mCi) has long half-life and causes Beta (β-) particle emission. Its main gamma photon has high energy (364 keV) which also causes poor image quality.

Exclusive breast feeding is essential for the physical and mental development of the child. Post-partum breast problem may produce a obstacle on the way of successful breast feeding. So this study was conducted in ICMH, Matuail to find out common post-partum breast problems. All mothers attending at LMC after delivery with breast problems were included in the study. A total 114 samples were taken. All lactating mothers who gave their consent are to be included in the study and who are not willing to participate in the study were excluded. In our study, age distribution of mother shows, 35.96% of mothers were at the age of < 20 years, 58.77% were between 20-30 years and 5.26% were > 30 yrs of age. Among 114 patients, 91.22% of mothers were house wife and 8.77% were working Mother, timing of initiation of breastfeeding was, 12.28% initiated within 1 hours, 78.28% were within 1-12 hours, 4.38% were within 12-24 hours and exclusive breast feeding was given to 63.15% baby and first pre-lacteal feed was given to 36.84%, among them 71.42%. Common problem was, 46.49% mother suffered from not enough milk followed by, 20.17% for poor attachment, 17.54% suffered from breast engorgement and 7.89% suffered cracked nipple, inverted nipple was in 2.63% flat and sore nipple to 1.75% and nipple infection and breast abscess was present in 0.877% mothers. Among them, 100% mother were counseled about breast feeding, 78.95% mother were taught about proper position and attachment, hot or cold compression given to 35.09%, Oketani breast massage given to 30.7% and others to 13.16%. In our study all mothers were counseled on the benefit of breastfeeding at LMC. Further large long term cohort study should be carried out to see the postpartum breast problem during lactation.Bangladesh Med J. 2015 Sep; 44 (3): 136-139

Introduction: Literature revealed that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) experience significantly more feeding problems and obesity compared to their peers. This study was designed to investigate the nutritional status and dietary patterns of children with autism in different age groups in Dhaka city, Bangladesh. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 193 individuals with ASD. A questionnaire was used as a tool to collect information from the mother of the respondents and anthropometric assessments were conducted by measuring height and weight. The dietary patterns of the respondents were taken using a food frequency questionnaire. Results: The age range of the participants were between 3-18 years. It was found that 11.9%, 19.7% and 23.3% of the participants were underweight, overweight and obese, respectively according to Body Mass Index (BMI)-for-age. About 70% of the respondents had medium Individual Dietary Diversity Score (IDDS). In addition, the association between IDDS and obesity was significantly correlated (p=0.00). Individuals with ASD exhibited similar food preferences across most age groups with little changes. Conclusion: Our study figured out that the prevalence of overweight increased in accordance with age among children with ASD. They have a tendency to prefer likeness and routine in their diet, which expands the tendency to have an imbalanced diet. A dietary guideline including seven food groups should be followed to improve their nutritional status and dietary practices.