Examining the relationship between diarrhea and linear growth in Kenyan HIV-exposed, uninfected infants

Emily L Deichsel, Grace C John-Stewart, Judd L Walson, Dorothy Mbori-Ngacha, Barbra A Richardson, Brandon L Guthrie, Carey Farquhar, Rose Bosire and Patricia B Pavlinac

PLOS ONE, 2020, vol. 15, issue 7, 1-11

Abstract: Background: Diarrhea in infancy can compromise linear growth and this relationship is likely influenced by diarrhea severity, number of episodes, and the timing of those episodes. HIV exposed, uninfected infants (HEU) have higher risk of growth faltering, infectious morbidity and mortality than HIV-unexposed infants and may be representative of children particularly vulnerable to diarrhea-associated linear growth faltering. Methodology/Principal findings: We utilized data from a cohort of Kenyan HEU infants followed from birth to 12 months of age. Infant length and morbidity were ascertained at monthly study visits and sick visits. Longitudinal models estimated the association between diarrhea severity and length-for-age Z-score (LAZ) in the following month, at 12 months of age, and in 6-month intervals. The 372 enrolled infants experienced an average of 2.15 episodes (range: 0–8) of diarrhea and 0.54 episodes (0–4) of moderate-to-severe diarrhea (MSD) between birth and 12 months. Surviving infants had a mean LAZ of -0.97 (standard deviation: 1.2) at 12 months. MSD was significantly associated with an average loss of 0.14 (95% Confidence Interval [CI]: -0.24, -0.05, p = 0.003) in LAZ one month after the episode. Linear growth outcomes were not predicted by cumulative episodes of diarrhea, or timing of diarrhea during infancy. Conclusions/Significance: Diarrhea severity influenced the relationship between diarrhea and subsequent linear growth. HEU infants with MSD may benefit from nutritional interventions following severe diarrhea to protect against linear growth faltering.

Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0235704 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 35704&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0235704

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235704

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().