The Impact of Maternal Nutritional Well-Being on Children’s Nutritional Status in India

Abstract The second Sustainable Development Goal of the UN is to eradicate all types of malnutrition by 2030. Half of children, teenage girls, and pregnant women in India suffer from anaemia. Women with anaemia are more likely to experience postpartum haemorrhage, morbidity, mortality, and adverse birth outcomes, including preterm birth and low birth weight as a result of weak intrauterine growth. This study evaluated the impact of maternal nutritional status on the nutritional status of Indian children. For the study, we used National Family Health Survey (NFHS IV & V) data from mothers between the ages of 15 and 49 and their infants between the ages of 6 and 59 months. Compared to their counterparts in (NFHS IV & V) younger children, not educated, rural, poorest, currently breastfeeding, and anaemic mothers were more likely to have anaemia. The results demonstrated that 75% of higher odds (1.75, p = 0.0000; 95% CI 1.71–1.78) were achieved after controlling for selected mothers' and children's background characteristics. Similarly, underweight, not educated, rural, and extremely poorest mothers were more likely to have stunted, underweight, and wasted children in NFHS-IV and V survey rounds. Normal mothers were less likely to have stunted, underweight, and wasted children by 21% (p = 0.000; 95% CI 0.77–0.81), 23% (p = 0.000, 95% CI 0.75–0.79), and 35% (p = 0.000; 95% CI 0.63–0.67), in NFHS-V, after adjusting for specific mothers' and children's background characteristics. The anaemic women and children should be the focus of focused interventions for policy makers and programmers to address nutritional deficiencies in order to achieve SDG in India. This will ensure efficient resource allocation and utilization.