Growth Monitoring: Experience from Ghana

Abstract

Mothers’ understanding of growth charts is an essential component of growth-monitoring programmes. This study investigated mothers’ interpretation of growth charts as they attended child welfare clinics in the greater Accra region of Ghana. Eight hundred seventy-five mothers were interviewed using questionnaires and sample growth charts. Factors impeding attendance at the clinics included business, forgetting, travel, and lack of knowledge. Nearly 40% of the mothers had no idea of the meaning or purpose of growth charts. Efforts to enhance the awareness of mothers and children's caretakers must be intensified.