Perfil nutricional e condições de saúde das crianças Tremembé entre 1994 e 2001

Abstract

The objective of this research was to identify the health and nutrition conditions of the Tremembé children younger than 5 years old. The whole studied population consists of 216 children, who live in several villages from the cities of Itarema and Acaraú. To reach the proposed objectives, it was made a descriptive study with population, observation and transversal base. The data collect consisted of attainment of the anthropometric measure of the children for nutritional evaluation; structuralized questionnaires answered for the mothers and/or responsible for the acquisition of the partner-economic data and infantile health and nutritional inquiry by the 24h remembrance. The results had shown that allied to the precarious sanitary conditions where they lived, more than the half of the children it coexisted parents who made use of alcohol and/or tobacco. The half of the children was born in hospital, however, more than the third part had the childbirth attended for obstetricians laypeople. More of the half of the mothers it carried through prenatal consultations, being that the majority of them carried through less than six consultations. The prompt incidence of the diarrhea was of 3,7% and the incidence in last the fifteen previous days to the interviews was of 13,4%; the majority of the cases occurred among the greaters of 12 months and the biggest incidence enters the children of 6 to 12 months. With relation to the respiratory infections, more than the third part of the children presented cough in last the seven previous days to the interview, having as reason the respiratory infection. Less than 10% of the studied population the main cause of internment was hospitalized in the previous year to the study, having been the diarrhea. The prevalence of the malnutrition cases among the five year lesser Tremembé children in accordance with the height/age indices (H/A) was of 22,1%; weight/age (W/A) of 14,9% and weight/height (W/H) 1,4%. The medium duration of breast-feeding was of 12,2 months, however, among the children up to six months of age the prevalence of exclusive maternal suckling was of 10% and great majority, already it had received some type of food before completing the first month of life. The diet of the studied children revealed little varied, poor in fruits, verdures and vegetables; the majority of them had inadequate diet for carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and for the calories. The half of the children did not present adequacy for calcium; the iron was the nutrient that presented inadequacy for practically all the children, in all the ages bands. It is concluded that it has necessity of implementation of the maternal-infantile actions for the studied group, as well as related educative actions to the nutrition area, however, taking in consideration the peculiarities of the local culture.