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Growth Charts Only Marginally Improved Maternal Learning from Nutrition Education and Growth Monitoring in Lesotho¹

Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama, Pan American Health Organization, Guatemala, Guatemala ^* Division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853

A study done in Lesotho in 1985–1986 assessed whether growth charts increased the impact of nutrition education and growth monitoring on maternal learning about weaning practices and diarrhea. Seven hundred and seventy six mothers were given three monthly sessions of group nutrition education along with growth monitoring of children and individual counseling. Growth charts, which were taught to one of two groups, fostered learning but only on issues related to diarrhea and only among new clinic attendants, mothers with less than secondary schooling and mothers of malnourished children. These benefits, however, were small (differences <10%) compared with the overall impact of the nutrition education and growth monitoring intervention (increases between baseline and post-intervention were >50% for some questions). Our findings suggest that well-designed clinic-based nutrition education and growth monitoring can have a significant impact on maternal nutrition knowledge. Teaching growth charts to mothers may not be necessary for obtaining such results in programs conducted under ideal conditions. More research is needed to determine under what circumstances, for what purposes and for whom growth charts may be beneficial.

KEY WORDS: • growth charts • growth monitoring • health education • Lesotho • humans

¹ The study was conducted under the auspices of the Joint Programme between UNICEF and Cornell Nutritional Surveillance Program funded by UNICEF and a cooperative agreement AID DSAN CA-0240 between USAID and Cornell University. Additional funding for this study was provided by UNICEF, Lesotho.

² To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Manuscript received 9 December 1991. Revision accepted 23 April 1992.