Vietnamese are the fourth tallest people in Southeast Asia, after Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, thanks to improvements in maternal and child nutrition.
This information was provided in a workshop of the Ministry of Health held in Hanoi at the end of July
This happed thanks to the change in the positive changes in maternal and child health care.
At the workshop, Deputy Director of the MOH's Department of Maternal and Child Health Tran Dang Khoa said that the average height of women and men in Vietnam rose by 3.3 and 5.8 centimeters during the 2000-2020 period to reach 155.6 centimeters and 168.1 centimeters, respectively.
Vietnamese are still getting taller over the past two decades, he noted, attributing it to positive changes in maternal and child health care.
The rate of pregnant women receiving antenatal care at least four times during pregnancy surpassed 80 percent. The rate of women giving birth supported by medical staff stood at 95 – 97 percent, and around 80 percent receive postpartum care in the first week.
However, neonatal mortality is still high, accounting for 70-80 percent of deaths among under-one-year-old infants./.
The rate of stunting among ethnic minority children (31.4 percent) is two times higher than that of children of the Kinh group (15 percent)./.
