Provision of Pre- and Postnatal Nutritional Supplements Generally Did Not Increase or Decrease Common Childhood Illnesses in Bangladesh: A Cluster-Randomized Effectiveness Trial

Background: Nutritional interventions may affect child morbidity.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine whether providing lipid-based nutrient supplements (LNSs) to pregnant and lactating women or LNS or micronutrient powder (MNP) to their infants influences child morbidity.

Methods: In a 4-arm cluster-randomized effectiveness trial, participants enrolled at ≤20 weeks of gestation (n = 4011) received: 1) maternal LNSs until 6 mo postpartum and child LNSs from 6-24 mo of age (LNS-LNS); 2) iron and folic acid (IFA) until 3 mo postpartum and child LNSs at 6-24 mo (IFA-LNS); 3) IFA (as above) and child MNP at 6-24 mo (IFA-MNP); or 4) IFA and no child supplement (IFA-Control). At 6, 12, 18, and 24 mo of age, we collected information on acute lower and upper respiratory infection (ALRI/AURI), diarrhea, and fever in the previous 14 d, and on episodes of illness in the previous 6 mo.

Results: At 6 mo, prevalence of ALRI, fever, or diarrhea in the previous 14 d (17.6%, 18.9% and 6.8%, respectively) did not differ between infants of women who received LNS and infants of women who received IFA, but prevalence of AURI was lower in the LNS-LNS group than in all other groups combined (27.7% compared with 31.7%; OR: 0.83; 95% CI: 0.70, 0.99). At 12, 18, and 24 mo, the 4 arms did not differ in prevalence of fever (∼18.3%) or ALRI (≤15%) in the previous 14 d, but prevalence of AURI at 12 mo was lower in IFA-LNS than in IFA-Control infants (27.6% compared with 33.9%, OR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.56, 0.99). The mean ± SD number of diarrhea episodes in the previous 6 mo was significantly higher among IFA-LNS than among IFA-Control infants at 6-12 (0.46 ± 0.04 compared with 0.33 ± 0.03) and 12-18 (0.45 ± 0.03 compared with 0.33 ± 0.02) mo. No other pairwise group differences were significant.

Conclusion: Providing LNSs to women or LNSs or MNP to children generally did not increase or decrease childhood illnesses. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01715038.