Exploring Health Status and Care Practices among Children of Female Workers in Unorganized Sector

Aims: To assess the health of children of construction workers with the help of anthropometric measurements and to explore their childcare practices. Settings and Design: Female construction workers and their children of age 12 to 36 months were taken as one study unit. The study had two components. One component deals with anthropometric measurements of the children while a qualitative descriptive exploratory component was used to explore mothers’ perspectives and childcare practices. Methodology: Anthropometric measurements, background information, and living conditions were collected with the help of pre-tested and semi-structured questionnaire. In depth interview technique was used to explore child care practices. Total 14 mothers were interviewed to attain the saturation of responses. “Snow ball” technique was used to recruit children for anthropometric measurements and mothers for in-depth interview. Anthropometric analysis was done in WHO-ANTHRO software v 3.0.1. Content analysis method was used to analyze emerging themes from the interviews. Results: Mean Z scores of weight for age, height for age, and MUAC was less than −1.5. Among the children, 67.2% of children were underweight; 28.4% were wasted while 49.3% were stunted. All mothers believed breast milk to be good for baby for fi rst few months, but only 11% of mothers could practice exclusive breast-feeding. Mothers’ perspectives about childcare shows understanding about importance of breast-feeding, complementary feeding, balanced diet, and vaccination. However, mothers were not able to practice their knowledge in childcare; main reasons were fear of wage loss, unavailability of proper living facilities and infl uence of labor contractor. Conclusions: The study fi ndings confi rm the inequity of health among children of construction workers. Mainstreaming of the workers in unorganized sector and strict legislations ensuring good living conditions are recommended to combat child malnutrition among this group.