FACTORS LEADING TO MALNUTRITION

We have many factors leading to malnutrition in our countries:

1.Factors related to the health of mother and child:

- Close Pregnancy : the frequent pregnancies exacerbate the nutritional status of the mother, they lead to early and total stop of breastfeeding and expose the child to malnutrition.
- Numerous and repeated pregnancies, the risk is almost twice higher among children born in families with four children than those with one to three.
- Prematurity: It increases calorie needs while the child is more difficult to feed. It plays a supporting role of malnutrition.
- Infections: Any infection in children causes a loss of appetite that restricts food intake and leads to a vicious circle.
- Poor health and vaccine coverage
2. Socio-cultural factors:

- Bad practice of breastfeeding: Breaks with tradition increases the frequency of these passages in artificial feeding. But breastfeeding has benefits for the child than the mother: breast milk is the best food for infants, it contains nutrients in appropriate proportions and antibodies such as IgG struggling against microbial attacks, it is the cheapest. Lactation is relatively contraceptive.
- Advertising on certain dietary abuse: That encourages mothers to abandon breastfeeding in favor of these products.
- Unschooling or disregard of the needs of the child, mothers have no information about the nutritional values of foods for their children, which explains in part the non-food diversification.

3.Factors related to food security, availability and accessibility: The main cause of malnutrition in children is the difference between needs and actual food intake.

4.Psycho-affectif Factors