Introduction: Growth is a reflection of a child’s health and nutritional status. Children with sickle cell disease often have slower statural and weight development. The aim of this study was to evaluate the nutritional profile of children with sickle cell disease (SCD) registered in the CEMECO centre database. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study with simple random sampling of children aged 1 to 16 years registered in the clinic database. Results: We collected information on 208 children, 121 of whom had sickle cell disease and 87 of whom were normal, with a sex ratio of 1.02. The mean age of the sickle cell patients was 8.7 ± 4.4 years, while that of the non-sickle cell patients was 9.5 ± 4 years. Haemoglobin electrophoresis revealed 103 homozygous (SS), 18 double heterozygous (SC, SBetaThal, SE) and 87 normal (AA) and/or sickle cell trait (AS) sickle cell cases. We observed a significant difference in the height/age ratio (P < 0.001) and weight/age ratio characterising underweight (P = 0.014), expressed as a Z score, between the sickle cell patients and the non-sickle cell patients. On the other hand, for children over 5 years of age, the BMI and average income of sickle cell disease sufferers was similar to that of non-sickle cell disease sufferers (P = 0.123¥). Conclusion: The results of our study revealed stunted growth in children with sickle cell disease.
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