Objective: To study the introducing time of complementary food in poor rural areas and its association with the growth of infants and young children.
Methods: In total of 1802 infants and young children aged 6-12 months from 11 poverty counties in southern Shaanxi Province were selected by stratified random cluster sampling. These infants were surveyed four times, and once every 6 months. Data on complementary feeding for children were collected through the questionnaires. Cognitive development was measured by BSID. Body weight and length for them were measured using standard gauges to generate height for age Z score( HAZ), weight for age Z score( WAZ) and weight for height Z score( WHZ). The analysis of variance was used to identify the association between the introducing time of complementary food and growth of children.
Results: at baseline, only 32. 93% of children were introduced complementary food at the age of 6 months. This study indicated that the introducing time of complementary food was significantly associated with the cognitive development in the longer run. The third and fourth survey showed that children with introducing complementary food after 6 months of age( mental development index were 81. 24 and78. 40 respectively) had significantly lower cognitive development ability( F = 11. 86, P<0. 05; F = 4. 24, P< 0. 05). There were no long-term significant correlation between the introducing time of complementary food and WAZ, HAZ and WHZ.
Conclusion: There are still lots of children that were not feeding reasonably in poor rural China. The introducing time of complementary food is related to growth of infants and young children.
Keywords: child growth; infant; introducing time of complementary food.