Skip to main content

Table 1 Socio-demographic characteristics of mothers

From: Maternal nutritional status and child feeding practices: a retrospective study in Santal communities, Birbhum District, West Bengal, India

Socio-demographic characteristics

n (%) or Mean ± SD/Median, Min/Max

Tribe, (n = 291)

Santal

273 (93.8)

Santal, but converted to Christendom

1 (0.3)

Konra

17 (5.8)

HH cash income group, (n = 272)

0–4999 INR/month

177 (65.1)

≥ 5000 INR/month

95 (34.9)

Maternal age at birth of first childNN*** (in years, mean ± SD/median, Min/Max), (n = 286)

19.9 ± 2.5/19.0, 14/29

Age group at birth of oldest child

14–17

29 (10.1)

18–21

194 (67.8)

22–26

57 (19.9)

27–29

6 (2.1)

Times given birthNN*** (mean ± SD/median, Min/Max), (n = 285)

1.8 ± 0.8/2, 1/5

Times given birth

1

119 (41.8)

2

117 (41.1)

3

42 (14.7)

4

5 (1.8)

5

2 (0.7)

Birth spacing from pregnancy to pregnancy (in months, mean ± SD/median, Min/Max)

between 1st and 2nd (n = 173)NN***

41.8 ± 24.6/36, 10/186

between 2nd and 3rd (n = 55)NN***

41.8 ± 23.5/36, 12/99

between 3rd and 4th (n = 12)NN*

55.9 ± 35.5/45, 12/99

between 4th and 5th (n = 6)NN*

68.5 ± 36.8/82.5, 24/99

Use of contraceptives at any time (n = 285)

Yes, regularly

38 (13.3)

Yes, sometimes

89 (31.2)

No

158 (55.4)

Mode of delivery (n = 280)

natural/vaginal delivery

264 (94.3)

cesarean section

16 (5.7)

Place of delivery (n = 282)

home

82 (29.1)

health facility

197 (69.9)

on the way to health facility

3 (1.1)

Marital status (n = 281)

married

274 (97.5)

widowed (n = 3), divorced (n = 2), deserted by husband (n = 1), single (n = 1)

7 (2.6)

Educational level (n = 288)

never attended school

133 (46.2)

attended (<  3 years, n = 43), Primary (class V, n = 45), Upper primary (class VIII, n = 37)

125 (43.3)

Secondary (class X, n = 23), High school (class XII, n = 6), Above high school (n = 1)

30 (10.4)

Daily time (in hours, mean ± SD, Min/Max) use on

cooking-related activities (n = 289)NN*

7.8 ± 2.5/7.8, 1/14

works outside the house/income generating activities (n = 69)NN***

3.4 ± 2.6/2.5, 0.5/8

child caring activities (n = 240)NN***

2.9 ± 2.0/2.5, 0.5/9.5

cleaning house (n = 289)NN***

1.3 ± 0.8/1.0, 0.2/4

cleaning cloth/taking bath (n = 242)NN***

1.3 ± 0.6/1.0, 0.3/3

relaxing/chatting with friends/sleeping during day time (n = 184)NN***

1.5 ± 0.8/1.0, 0.5/5

 all indicated activities during the day (n = 290) NN***

14.3 ± 2.2/15, 7/19

  1. NN not normally distributed tested by Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test, the hypothesis regarding the distributional form is rejected with *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001