PLoS medicine
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Approximately 40% of children 3 to 4 years of age in low- and middle-income countries have suboptimal development and growth. Women's empowerment may help provide inputs of nurturing care for early development and growth by building caregiver capacity and family support. We examined the associations between women's empowerment and child development, growth, early learning, and nutrition in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). ⋯ Women's empowerment was positively associated with early child cognitive development, child growth, early learning, and nutrition outcomes in SSA. Efforts to improve child development and growth should consider women's empowerment as a potential strategy.
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Ronald Ma and co-authors discuss Emma Norrman and colleagues' accompanying research study on the health of children born with assisted reproductive technology.
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Violent conflicts are observed in many parts of the world and have profound impacts on the lives of exposed individuals. The limited evidence available from specific country or region contexts suggest that conflict exposure may reduce health service utilization and have adverse affects on health. This study focused on identifying the association between conflict exposure and continuum of care (CoC) services that are crucial for achieving improvements in reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health and nutrition (RMNCHN). ⋯ This study showed that conflict exposure is statistically significantly and negatively associated with utilization of maternal CoC services, in each component of the CoC scale. These findings have highlighted the challenges in achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 3 in conflict settings, and the need for more concerted efforts in ensuring CoC, to mitigate its negative implications on maternal and child health.
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[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002410.].