Maternal Time Poverty Drives Suboptimal Complementary Feeding Practices in the El Niño Affected Eastern Ethiopia Community
Abstract Background: Ethiopia is affected by recurrent drought and food insecurity crises including from El Niño, the climatic change that lasted from mid-2014 through 2016 and caused the failure of the rainy seasons in eastern Ethiopia. The event is expected to have a detrimental effect on the already suboptimal complementary feeding practices. However, there is a lack of research on how climatic events affect child feeding. Hence, the study was intended to explore how El Niño influenced the complementary feeding practices and experiences of the food-insecure community of eastern Ethiopia from March to September 2016.Methods: This study was an exploratory qualitative study that used a phenomenological approach. The study was conducted in the food-insecure setting of Gale Mirga kebele of Kersa district. The study involved 11 focus group discussion (FGD) comprising a total of 76 participants, including three FGDs with mothers, three FGDs with Health Development Army leaders (HDA); two FGDs with fathers, two FGDs with traditional birth attendants, and one FGD with religious leaders. The Atlas.ti software was used for coding and thematic analysis.Results: El Niño aggravated failed crop and livestock loss were reported to directly reduce the quantity and quality of food available to feed young children, resulting in more frequent skipping of meals, less animal protein sources and over-reliance of cereal-based food. The impact of El Nino on livelihoods often resulted in both parents working away from home with child feeding delegated to older children or other family members. Maternal absence from home was a barrier to participation in community-based nutrition activities. Short birth spacing and low fathers’ involvement in feeding also reduced the time available to mothers to devote to child feeding.Conclusions: The maternal suboptimal time allocation to child feeding is central to the poor complementary feeding practices in El Niño stricken food-insecure settings of Eastern Ethiopia. The women should be supported with climate-resilient livelihoods options in their villages, thus allowing them both to feed their children and attend nutrition education sessions with HDA. Such sessions should focus on food processing demonstrations to improve the nutritional quality of plant-based complementary foods.