Prevalence of anemia and malnutrition in newborn aged 2 – 12 months who feed on cow's milk instead of natural mother feeding in rural area of dawran town of thamar governorate

One hundred new born aged (2-12) months (mean 6 months) were randomly selected from hospitals of Dawran Town of which 50 new born were have cow's milk feeding without breast feeding on daily basis, and other 50 new born were haven't cow's milk feeding and have natural breast feeding as control group. This study was surveyed in the Anthropometric profile then laboratory tests. The 2011 UNICEF malnutrition reference tables were used to evaluate the anthropometric data. Veinblood sample were drawn from each new born. HB, HCT, and RBC were measured automatically by Beckman coulter® LH500 series system. The malnutrition index of all new born in this study showed that the average of malnutrition degree is (1+) and the percentage of new born suffer from malnutrition are 52%, 8% in cow's milk new born and breast milk new born respectively. Using WHO criteria for the diagnosis of anemia, the prevalence of anemia in this study was 33.0%. The blood haemoglobin, haematocrit and red blood cell count were significantly lower in cow's milk new born when compared with non-cow's milk new born. This study revealed that loss natural breast-feeding has significant effect on Hbvalue and nutritional status of newborn.