Un-reading Risk: Maternal Factors in Childhood Disability in Kenya

• In Event: Child Well-Being and Social Progress: Moving Beyond Health, Safety, and Standards

Abstract

The marginalization of disability in research and praxis in the global South (Author, 2001) has persisted despite long standing estimates that 60-75% of the world’s population of individuals with disabilities live in low-income countries of the Global South (Mallory, Charlton, Nicholls, & Marfo, 1993). Some estimate that 80% of disabled persons live in developing countries with 20% of the poorest people in those countries being those with disabilities and 85% being children (Helander, 1993). These statistics suggest that the global burden of disability disproportionately adversely affects the most vulnerable population of the world’s children and adults in the neediest situations. Compounding these issues is the fact that in instances where studies have been conducted, disability and poverty have tended to be studied as separate strands (Erb & Harriss-White, 2001) thereby sidestepping the empirical connection between disability and poverty and most conveniently unseeing the neoliberal-policied landscape where women are heavily burdened in the current modes of production that have transformed them into de facto heads of households.

Few studies (e.g., Yeo & Moore, 2003) have attempted to connect disability and poverty within low-income countries. What is known and uncontested, however, is that the proportion of disability caused by environmental and biological risk factors such as communicable diseases, maternal and perinatal diseases are significantly higher in low-income nations compared to developed countries (Elwan, 1999). Additionally, children under age 5 in developing countries are exposed to multiple risks, including malnutrition, poor health, and environments, which can impair cognitive, motor, and social-emotional development (WHO, 2011).

The overarching purpose of this study, therefore, was to connect maternal health indices with disability risk factors among infants, toddlers and preschoolers in Kenya while remaining conscious of the neoliberal landscaped background against which these issues must be viewed. Drawing from interview responses of a large sample of Kenya’s population of women with children under 5 years of age from the Kenya Demographic Health Survey, the current study connects disability risk factors and poverty among young children in Kenya. We draw upon postcolonial and disability studies, both as theoretical frameworks and as analytic tools to more adequately account for the invisibility of disability in Kenya’s discourse on early childhood education (Author, 2013). Results showed that compared to their urban counterparts, a higher proportion of rural mothers reported no formal education, were poorest, never received prenatal care, had babies weighing lowest at birth, never been vaccinated including critical measles and Polio immunizations. These findings speak to critical issues related to early childhood education and early intervention whilst balancing the maternal and child instrumental needs and struggles for well-being vis-à-vis social policy that has contributed to the adverse conditions against which mother and child must contend.

Authors

• Kagendo Mutua, The University of Alabama

• Mwarumba Mwavita, Oklahoma State University