Progress report abstract of Cartoon

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOTHERS’ WORK AND INFANT MORTALITY AND MORBIDITY IN THAILAND

             

                Infant mortality is an important indicator of national development and health. Although Thailand has a declining trend in morbidity and mortality rates due to the development of national health care and economic growth, Thai infant death and morbidity rates are still high compared with many other countries. Since the mother is usually the key caretaker of children in early life, the relationship between mothers and infants can have an important impact on infant health. Thailand's socio-economic development patterns include increasing proportions of mothers working outside the home to contribute to household income. Mosley and Chen's analytical framework (1984) and Briggs' multiple exposures multiple effects model (MEME) (2003) are the most prominent frameworks for the study of child survival in developing countries. This study examines the relationship between mothers' work and infant morbidity and mortality in Thailand using data from the prospective cohort study of Thai children (PCTC) 2000-2002.

Bivariate results show that mother's work status and occupation have an independent relationship with infant mortality and infant morbidity at 6-12 months. After categorizing the type of illness, mother's occupation is found to have an effect on self-reported infant wheezing in five study areas and on perinatal hospitalization in three rural areas. However, mother's work outside the household has no relationship with infant illness in the first 3 months or 3-6 months, including hospitalization for respiratory illness, diarrhea or other diseases or self-reported infant atopic dermatitis. However, multivariate analysis in the form of logistic regression does not find a significant effect for mother's work status or occupation after considering other factors such as the study area. Therefore, work status and occupation of mothers during 28-36 weeks of pregnancy period have only clude relationship with infant mortality and infant morbidity in this Thai cohort study. The potential benefits of this study are to provide evidence to support an intensified role of the state to support working mothers in the work place; support for an enhanced role for conventional medicine to help decrease adverse infant health; and a better understanding of how the family can support the balancing between infant care and mothers' work.

Keyword: infant mortality, infant morbidity, maternal employment, mothers work, hospitalization, child health, occupation, infant illness.