Determinants of growth in the first 6 months of life among the urban poor in Sudan.

This paper presents part of a longitudinal study carried out in the three towns of Khartoum Province in the period December 1983 to April 1985. It was attempting to determine the duration of satisfactory breast-feeding in healthy breast-fed infants of mothers attending maternal and child health centres in the three towns; Khartoum, Khartoum-North and Omdurman. The main objective of the present paper is to compare samples from the three towns in terms of the factors affecting weight gain. Four hundred and thirty-nine infants were recruited at birth and home visited every 2 weeks. At each visit weight was measured and it was recorded whether any supplements had been given and whether the child had been ill. Length was measured every 4 weeks. There were significant differences between the samples from the three towns in attained weights and weight increments. Weight gains were lowest in the Khartoum North sample in the first 3 months, but from 3 to 6 months were highest, almost equalling the NCHS reference. In the Khartoum and Omdurman samples growth from 0 to 3 months exceeded the reference but from 3 to 6 months was less than the reference. Fifty per cent of infants were supplemented by 13 weeks in the Omdurman sample; the median time of supplementation in the other two samples was 17 weeks. Only in Khartoum did delaying supplementation seem to benefit growth. Infections were most common among the Omdurman sample.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)