[Maternal competence and infant malnutrition: an instrument for its evaluation]

At the Unit of Nutritional Rehabilitation of La Plata Children's Hospital "Sor María Ludovica" an inventory was designed to observe in outpatient clinics certain behaviors allowing an early detection of disorders in mother-child link. We evaluate a sample of 50 mothers with their children between 1 and 24 months presenting moderate or severe undernutrition of primary cause, as well as 50 mothers with their children of the same age, sex, social and economical level of the experimental group who never presented undernutrition. This inventory, which has the following parts, was applied: 1) verbal maternal behaviour, 2) affective maternal behavior, 3) child's hygiene, 4) stimulation of development, 5) participation of other persons in child's care, 6) consistency between mother's discourse and attitudes. The inventory has been sensitive to the proposed objective, showing a highly significant difference when correlate mother-well nourished child and mother-undernourished child.