Relationship Between Single Motherhood Status and Stunting Among Children Under 5 in Kgatleng, Botswana

Abstract

Undernutrition affects sub-Saharan African countries with increased stunting among children under 5 years old. The short- and long-term effects of this stunting include the potential for slow growth in early life, impaired health, and educational and economic disadvantages in adolescent and adult years. In this quantitative cross-sectional study, we analyzed the relationship between single-mother families and the occurrence of stunting among children under 5 years old in the Kgatleng District of Botswana. We collected primary data from 196 mothers and their children who visited selected clinics in Kgatleng. The results of the binary logistic regression analysis were significant: χ2 (1, <em>N</em> = 196) = 4.119, <em>p</em> = .046, indicating the model was able to distinguish between those respondents who reported stunting and those who did not report stunting. The implications for positive social change include the potential to increase awareness among health professionals to continually check the linear growth of children under 5 to help curb the deleterious effects and the social inequalities caused by stunting.

Analisis situasi kejadian stunting pada bayi di bawah lima tahun (balita)

“…Bayi yang lahir dari ibu remaja akan berisiko mengalami kekurangan gizi (Haque et al, 2022), demikian juga halnya dengan status perkawinan. Anak lebih berisiko mengalami stunting pada ibu tunggal sekitar 1,79 kali dibandingkan dengan anak yang tinggal dengan orang tua yang lengkap (Callaghan et al, 2021;Mwamba, 2021), hal ini bisa saja terjadi karena ibu sebagai orang tua tunggal akan lebih fokus dalam mencari nafkah sehingga asupan intake yang diberikan kepada anaknya tidak terpenuhi. Keluarga…”