Maternal and Child Health among the Urban Poor in Nairobi, Kenya

This paper examines maternal and child health in the Nairobi slums using information on 1219 births which occurred in the past three years before the Nairobi Cross-sectional Slum Survey (NCSS) of 2000. The specific objectives are to compare maternal and child health indicators in the Nairobi slums with the rest of the Kenyan population, and to identify socio-economic and demographic factors associated with poor maternal and child health in the Nairobi slums. The results show that overall, the quality of antenatal care in the slums is comparable to the rest of the Kenyan population. With respect to professional delivery care, the Nairobi slums are worse off than the rest of Nairobi or other urban areas in Kenya, but seem better off compared to the rural communities. It is with respect to child health indicators that the slum residents in Nairobi show the greatest disadvantage, in comparison with the rest of the Kenyan population. Children in the slums are considerably less likely to be fully immunized and more likely to experience fever and diarrhea than their counterparts living elsewhere in Kenya. In general, lower educational attainment and belonging to the Luo ethnic group are consistently associated with poorer maternal and child health outcomes in the Nairobi slums.