The association between mothers ‘current age and infant mortality in Uganda

Abstract

Background: The study examined the socioeconomic and demographic risk factors focusing on the association between mother's current age and infant mortality in Uganda. Having children at young ages that is; below 20 years and older ages above 40 years is significantly associated with higher risks of experiencing infant mortality.

Methods: This study used secondary data from the UDHS 2016 and it was cross sectional where the population of interest were women in the reproductive age group who had children within the five years prior the survey which generated a weighted total of 10,103 women. Infant mortality was the dependent variable and it is widely understood as the death between birth and the first birthday. The independent variables were both socioeconomic and demographic and analysis was performed at three levels that is; Univariate, Bivariate and Multivariate analysis to explore the association between the variables and infant mortality.

Results: This study confirmed an association between mother's current age and infant mortality in Uganda where by about 11 percent of the women aged 45 years and above and 6 Percent of the teenagers experienced infant mortality. This shows that however much mortality is high among the teenagers but highest among older women above 45 years since the odds were 2.10 indicating that mortality more than doubles in women aged 45 years and above as compared to the teenagers and this was significant. This calls for the addressing of the issue of having children at older ages through project and policy implementation focusing on both older and teenage mothers as a way to reduce infant mortality in Uganda. Furthermore, promotion women education, regulating the number of members in a household and focusing more on male infants to improve their survivorship rates can also help in reducing infant mortality in Uganda since they significantly associated with infant mortality.

Conclusions: The study puts it forward that mother's current age influences infant mortality and as mother's age plays a big role in the Infant's survival, nutrition, access and utilization of health care services and we'll being. The null hypothesis therefore was rejected as it stated that there is no association between mother's current age and infant mortality and further research is necessary in addressing how older women experience more infant mortality and addressing the other risk factors for infant mortality among the teenagers too in order to reduce infant mortality in Uganda.