The Impact of Public Health Service on the Development of Infants form Age 0~3

[[abstract]]GoalThe growth and development of children, to some extent, reflect their overall health. The aim of this study were to explore the growth and development of children aged 0-3 years in the families on the attention list, and to investigate the impact of public health services on the growth and development of children aged 0~3 years at different stages.MethodThis is a secondary data analysis. The source of data was from “Health management system of infant and child from family requiring attention” of Chang-hua County. We chose 297 infants who were born in Year 2007 and received complete 7 times of physical examinations and development assessment in the following 3 years as our study subjects. Specified public health services and relative health education were intervened toward the primary caregivers right after each check-up if the result turned out to be abnormal. This study intended to show the growth and development of 0-3 years children at the following 12, 24, 39 months of stage, and to investigate the impacts the preceding intervention of public health services on the health development of children by using McNemar’s test and logistic regression analysis.ResultsThe result showed that a significantly higher frequency of abnormalities was found in male (16.1%) than female (6.6%) at the first time of physical examination after birth of infants (p=0.011). In addition, there was a significant correlations between the outcome of first time physical examination and the sources of infants (p=0.018). The percentage of abnormalities was found higher in the infants born with abnormal health conditions (41.7%) compared to the first births (13.1%), and the infants from adolescent mothers (11.1%). On the contrary, the outcomes of development assessments in different stages were not significantly associated with baby’s gender, sources of infants, the nationality of mothers, educational levels of parents, and primary caregiver’s identity. Finally, we found health education of baby’s bowel movements taught at 10-months of age (the 3rd time) was significantly correlated with the improvement outcomes of the 4th development assessment at 12-month of age (OR=7.42, p = 0.003).ConclusionsIn terms of growth and development, the percentage of abnormalities in 0~3 infants on the watching list of families decrease along their ages. The significant influence of health education on baby’s bowel movements taught at 10-months of age, implies the importance of public health services, for instance, daily diet and stool education, on the early (i.e., before 12 month old) development of infantsKey words: growth, development, physical examination, development assessment, developmental delay, health educatio