Inequalities in child malnutrition in three Latin American countries: The role of antenatal care

The study aims to analyze the role of antenatal care as a factor associated with child malnutrition and its unequal distribution among the population in Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru. Also, childrearing attitudes are pointed out as a potential factor linked to child malnutrition and its concentration among the poorest. Updated empirical evidence is provided for these countries, based on the most recent Demographic and Health Surveys available. Antenatal care does not appear to have the expected association with child health identified by the medical literature. The potential relation of prenatal care practices with infant health conditions seems to be through the percentage of women receiving prenatal care in the dwelling area. A possible explanation is that antenatal care may be a more relevant factor for advanced countries, where socioeconomic disparities are much lower than in the sample of the countries analyzed here. On the contrary, it is wealth and genetic factors the most important correlates of under-five malnutrition, its concentration, and its different prevalence among children who received complete and incomplete antenatal care. In that sense, a first necessary step to tackling child malnutrition and its inequities seems to be overcoming income inequalities in these countries. Nonetheless, it certainly is an ambitious step towards enhancing child health indicators in less developed economies. Relevance to Development Studies The study of child malnutrition and its concentration among the poorest households is a matter of concern in developing countries, and Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru are not the exception. In Latin America, around 16 per cent of children are malnourished and life expectancy is significantly lower than in the developed economies (it is 66 years in Bolivia, and 73 in Colombia and Peru). Indeed, the improvement in child and maternal health are some of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s), and different conventions and protocols ratified by these countries show their compromise with improving child nutritional status. Moreover, it is relevant to pay attention to child growth determinants and to the policies aimed to improving child growth indicators be-cause of the existence of linkages of health in early childhood with standard of living, as well as with the outcomes in subsequent stages in life related to health, school performance, and labor market.