Loughborough University
Browse

Maternal BMI mediates the impact of crop-related agricultural work during pregnancy on infant length in rural Pakistan: a mediation analysis of cross-sectional data

Download (821.18 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2020-01-06, 11:47 authored by Rebecca Pradeilles, Rebecca PradeillesRebecca Pradeilles, Elizabeth Allen, Haris Gazdar, Hussain Bux Mallah, Azmat Budhani, Rashid Mehmood, Sidra Mazhar, Ayesha Mysorewala, Saba Aslam, Alan D Dangour, Elaine Ferguson
Background: Stunted growth in early infancy is a public health problem in low-and-middle income countries. Evidence suggests heavy agricultural work during pregnancy is inversely associated with maternal body mass index (BMI) and infant birth weight in low- and middle-income countries; but pathways linking agricultural work to length-for-age Z-scores (LAZ) in early infancy have not been examined. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between agricultural work during pregnancy, post-natal maternal BMI and LAZ among young infants in rural Pakistan; and explored whether maternal BMI mediated the relationship between agricultural work and infant LAZ.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted from December 2015 to January 2016 in rural Sindh, Pakistan. Mother-infant dyads were recruited via systematic random cluster sampling at 2–12 weeks’ post-partum (n = 1161). Anthropometric measurements (maternal and infant height/length and weight) and questionnaire data were collected. Multivariable linear regression and structural-equation based mediation analyses were used to examine
associations of agricultural work during pregnancy with maternal BMI and infant LAZ.
Results: During pregnancy, women reported engaging in livestock-related work (57.0%), crop-related work (42.7%), and cotton harvesting (28.4%). All three forms of agricultural work were negatively associated with maternal BMI (β = − 0.67 [− 1.06; − 0.28], β = − 0.97 [− 1.51; − 0.48]; and β = − 0.87 [− 1.33; − 0.45], respectively). Maternal engagement in cotton harvesting alone was negatively associated with infant LAZ after controlling for confounding factors. The total negative effect of cotton harvesting on infant LAZ was − 0.35 [− 0.53; − 0.16]. The indirect effect of
maternal BMI on infant LAZ was − 0.06 [− 0.08; − 0.03], revealing that 16% (− 0.06/− 0.35) of the relationship between cotton harvesting and infant LAZ, after adjustment, was mediated via maternal BMI.
Conclusion: These results underscore a need to reduce labour-intensive agricultural workload demands during pregnancy, especially in cotton harvesting, to reduce risks of negative maternal energy balance and poor growth outcomes in early infancy.

Funding

Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia Research (LANSA) research consortium

UK aid from the UK government

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth

Volume

19

Issue

1

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Authors

Publisher statement

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Springer under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2019-11-26

Publication date

2019-12-17

Copyright date

2019

eISSN

1471-2393

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Rebecca Pradeilles Deposit date: 23 December 2019

Article number

504

Usage metrics

    Loughborough Publications

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Licence

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC