Mothers' Motivation in Caring for Stunting Children

Abstract

Stunting is a chronic nutritional problem characterized by a child's height being lower than the standard for their age due to long-term malnutrition, repeated infections, and inadequate stimulation that frequently occurs in both poor and developing countries. Stunting impacts a child's quality of life and increases the risk of morbidity and mortality. Therefore, proper and careful prevention and management of stunting are crucial. Several factors influencing the success of stunting management include the mother's level of knowledge about toddler nutrition, her education, household income, family support, the number of family members, and the mother's motivation to care for the stunted child. This study was conducted to understand the extent to which maternal motivation influences the success of stunted child care. Research design using descriptive with crossectional approach. The sample was 96 respondents with purposive sampling technique. Data was taken using questionnaire. Data analysis used descriptive statistics. More than half had low motivation, namely 52 people (54.2%), 34 (35.4%) respondents had moderate motivation, and only 10 respondents (10.4%) had high motivation. Most respondents have low motivation in caring for children with stunting, this is influenced by several intrinsic factors including low levels of education, not working, lack of knowledge and understanding about stunting and low socioeconomic status.