ACUTE CHILDHOOD DIARRHEA AND MATERNAL TIME ALLOCATION IN THE NORTHERNCENTRAL SIERRA OF PERU

Interventions to improve child health depend, at least implicitly, on changing maternal knowledge and behaviour and a reallocation of matern al time. There have been few studies, however, of the time cost involv ed in the adoption of new health technologies and even fewer that exam ine changes in maternal activities in response to child illness. The p resent study examines maternal daytime activities and investigates cha nges that occur when children are ill. We examine the impact of acute childhood diarrhoea episodes on the activity patterns of the mother/ca retaker in this setting. The results show that mothers alter their usu al activity patterns only slightly in response to acute diarrhoea epis odes in their children. They continue to perform the same variety of a ctivities as when the children are healthy, although they are more lik ely to perform them with the child 'carried' on their back. There is s ome indication that diarrhoea perceived to be more severe did result i n the mother acting as caretaker more frequently. These findings have important implications for health interventions that depend on changin g the amount of maternal or caretaker time spent for child health tech nologies, but the implications may vary depending on the reasons for t he observed lack of changes in caretaker activities.