Childcare practices associated with stunting among children aged 6-59 months in agro-pastoral society of Izazi ward of Iringa region

Abstract Child stunting is still a global public health challenge, with a greater impact in developing countries. In Tanzania, an estimate of 30% of children are stunted. This study estimated childcare practices associated with stunting in the agro-pastoral community of Izazi ward in Iringa District. A cross-sectional study was employed to collect both quantitative and qualitative anthropometric data from 377 mother-child pairs of children aged 6-59 months. Three focus group discussions were carried out with mothers, and interviews were conducted with community leaders. Respondents were selected using systematic and snowball sampling methods. Data collection involved a structured questionnaire, where ENA for SMART software was used to generate the index for height-for-age. The findings confirm that stunting is still a public health problem among agro-pastoral communities of Izazi ward, 34.7% of respondents were stunted. A multivariate binary logistic regression was used to assess the childcare practices associated with stunting; factors associated with stunting included: being female (AOR=0.66; 95% CI:0.40-0.99, p=0.048), breastfeeding for 1 year (AOR=19.75; 95% CI:8.99-43.39, p=0.001), breastfeeding for less than two years (AOR=7.08; 95% CI:4.03-12.45, p=0.001), non-exclusive breastfeeding (AOR=2.599; 95% CI:1.23-5.47, p=0.012), and having one disease (AOR=5.36; 95% CI:1.88-15.27, p=0.02). This study highlights the importance of promoting exclusive breastfeeding and treating childhood illnesses to improve health outcomes among children.