Capacity building of mothers on promoting infant development

Abstract

Background: Two major factors which influence child growth and development and hereditary and environment stimulation. The most important environments is and appropriate and effective nurturing from parents especially mother. Objectives : The quasi-experimental study aimed at determining the effects of capacity building program on promoting infant development toward maternal knowledge and practice. Methods: The experimental and control groups consisted of 36 and 38 mothers respectively who had children aged one to nine months old and lived in urban health center serving areas in Ayutthaya Province. The program and data collection were conducted during November 2002 to February 2003. The experimental group regular services. A structured questionnaire was used to assess maternal knowledge, the Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME) inventory was used to observe maternal proactive and the Capute test was used to assess infant development. Results: After Intervention the mean score of maternal knowledge and practice of the experimental group increased significantly compared with the control group and before experiment. After experiment the mean developmental quotient of infants in the experimental group increased significantly compared with the infants in the control group. Conclusion : The effective capacity building program should be consisted of home visits and homebased handbook incinerated with the training activity.