Pak J Med Sci March - April 2020 Vol. 36 No. 3 www.pjms.org.pk 382 INTRODUCTION A large part of world’s population is affected by malnutrition, caused by inadequate, excess or imbalanced nutrition resulting in serious Correspondence: Dr. Attia Bari, Associate Professor, The Children’s Hospital & The Institute of Child Health, Lahore, Pakistan. Email: drattiabari@gmail.com * Received for Publication: July 9, 2019 * Revision Received: December 2, 2019 * Revision Accepted: December 18, 2019 Original Article Patterns of maternal nutritional status based on mid upper arm circumference Attia Bari 1 , Nighat Sultana 2 , Sana Mehreen 3 , Nadia Sadaqat 4 , Izza Imran 5 , Rashida Javed 6 ABSTRACT Objective: To determine the patterns of maternal nutrition status by using mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) and to examine the association of maternal nutritional status with the nutritional status of malnourished children under two years of age. Methods: Descriptive study conducted at the Department of Pediatric Medicine of the Children’s Hospital, Lahore from January 2017 to March 2018. A total of 227 mother accompanying their children admitted for nutritional rehabilitation were included. Demographics of participants along with MUAC of every mother was taken. Data analysis was done by SPSS 22. Results: Mean maternal age was 28.29±5.30 years and mean age of children was 9.22 ± 6.05 months. Mean maternal MUAC was 25.53±3.63 cm. Normal nutrition was present in only 70 (31%), 35 (15.4%) had moderate to severe under nutrition and 68 (30%) were overweight and 17 (7.5%) were obese. Maternal illiteracy was common 150 (66%) and 203 (89%) belong to poor social class. Majority 150 (75%) children had <-3SD WHZ score. Only 42 (18.5%) children were exclusively breast fed. Maternal malnutrition was significantly associated with severity of child’s undernutrition (p=0.045) and low rates of exclusive breast feeding practices (p=0.049). Conclusion: Malnutrition, in the form of both under nutrition and obesity is prevalent in mothers of malnourished children belonging to lower social class. Maternal illiteracy and low income are the major contributor in maternal malnutrition which in turn has an impact on child nutrition and breast feeding practices. KEYWORDS: Children, Malnutrition, Maternal nutrition, Mid upper arm circumference, WHZ score. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.3.1331 How to cite this: Bari A, Sultana N, Mehreen S, Sadaqat N, Imran I, Javed R. Patterns of maternal nutritional status based on mid upper arm circumference. Pak J Med Sci. 2020;36(3):382-386. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.36.3.1331 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. implications for individuals, communities and even to the country level. Maternal undernutrition is highly prevalent in resource-poor settings, ranging from 10% to 19%, but is particularly high (>20%) in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia. In many developing countries, especially in South Asia maternal malnutrition in the form of macro and micronutrient deficiencies is a significant public health concern. 1,2 Maternal mortality during birth process and overall disease burden for both mothers and their children is often due to maternal undernutrition, making it a special concern for health care providers and government as well. 3,4 Malnutrition is recognized