Abstract:  Introduction: Malnutrition has a significant impact on global disease for the majority of children worldwide, by being responsible for almost half of the deaths of children under the age of five especially in the developing countries including Eritrea. However, there is no clear information on the role of antenatal care and feeding practices in preventing malnutrition. Therefore, assessing the role of antenatal care visit and feeding practices in preventing malnutrition is of vital importance.

Objective: To assess the role of regular ANC visit and feeding practices in preventing malnutrition among children aged 0-59 months, who visited Orotta National Pediatric Referral Hospital from 31st August – 30th September, 2016.

Methodology: A cross-sectional, Hospital based study was carried out. Data were collected from mothers (caretakers) using semi-structured questionnaire developed for the purpose. Moreover, anthropometric measurement of the subjects was taken. Data was and entered to the computer and analyzed using SPSS version 20 and p-value <0.05 at 95 ci was considered as statistically significant.

Results: The main associated factors of stunting were found to be frequency breastfeeding and antenatal care visit underweight with weaning only variables wasting. 

Conclusion and Recommendation: Malnutrition remains a major health problem among children aged 0-59 months hence interventions regarding regular visits feeding practices are highly suggested given special attention

Keywords:  Antenatal care, Breast Feeding, Stunting, Underweight, Wasting, Children, under five years.

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Abstract: Background: It is well established that improving human health has direct obvious payoff on enhancing life expectancy along with economic growth. Infant mortality deliberately used to understand a countries overall public health status particularly child bearing mothers. But the prevalence of child mortality continues to be a prime public health concerns in Bangladesh. This study aims to investigate the impact of some geospatial, socioeconomic, demographic and health factors on infant mortality in Bangladesh.

Methods: The study modeled infant mortality (aged 0-11 months) as the categorical dependent variable using 11 selected covariates from the 2014 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS-2014) dataset. The Pearson-Chi square test and Binary Logistic Regression methods were utilized for the bivariate and multivariate analyses.

Results: All the selected covariates were significantly associated with infant mortality in bivariate analysis. The results of the logistic regression revealed that illiterate father, household without toilet facility or having hanging toilet, multiple birth and small size at birth appeared at the significant risk factors for infant mortality. In contrast, receiving vitamin A dose and visiting in antenatal care revealed as protective factor for infant deaths.

Conclusion: This study is uniquely addressed some several determinants which are the immediate cause of infant deaths. This evidence based empirical study suggests that more attention needs regarding to eliminate all kinds of child mortality in Bangladesh along with infant mortality.

Keywords:  Determinants, Socio-economic variables, Infant mortality, 0-11 months, Bangladesh.

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