Growth pattern and prevalence of underweight, stunting and wasting among infants of Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Childhood undernutrition continues to be an important public health problem throughout the developing world including India. Present study was conducted in a government general hospital in South Kolkata to ascertain the level of undernutrition and growth pattern among urban infants born with LBW. A total of 97 infants, out of 52% boys and 48% girls were included in the present analyses. Underweight, stunting and wasting was defined as z-score below 2SD of weight-for-age, length-for-age and weight-for-length, respectively. Therefore, girls had 1.25 (Risk ratio (RR): 1.25; 95% CI: 0.73-2.15), 1.65 (CI: 0.76-3.56) and 1.88 (CI: 0.18-20.06) fold lower chance to be an underweight, stunted and wasted compared to boys. Moreover, sex of infants had a significant impact on length-for-age z-score (B = 0.372, P< 0.05). Overall the prevalence of underweight, stunting and wasting was 36.1%, 22.7% and 3.1%, respectively. This study provided evidence that undernutrition is still a leading problem during infancy in developing countries including India.