Abstract: Background: Undernutrition was covering more than half of under-five mortality where it is still preventable problem.So far there is no study that shows the association of maternal age with child undernutrition. Child mortality in developing countries is one of the public health problems that cause child morbidity and mortality. Objective: To compare the prevalence of stunting among children born to women in the age group 15-19 (exposed) and those in the age group of 20-49 (unexposed) in Damot Gale woreda, southern Ethiopia,2023. Methods: Comparative cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2021 to August 2023. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 2121 mother-child pair of study participants. Data was entered in to Epi Data V4.6 and the Z-scores of indices, WHZ, HAZ, WAZ were calculated using WHO Anthro software. Then, data were exported to SPSS V23 for further analysis. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was done to identify the independent determinants of stunting, wasting and underweight separately and variables with a p-value of <0.05 and 95%CI of AOR was used to declare statistically significance. Result: The overall prevalence of stunting among the study population was found 35.9%. However, with regards to maternal age category, there was significant difference between mothers of age group15-19 years and 20-49 years old. Stunting was 41.5% (95%CI: 39.6%, 44.7%) among 15-19 years old while only 30.3% (95%CI: 28.3%, 32.3%) among mothers of age group 20-49 years. Conclusion: This study showed that the overall prevalence of Stunting was moderate, and it has significant difference between children born to mother’s age category. Maternal education, history of illness in the last14days, childsex, BMI, ANC, dietary diversity score, Power on deciding for money, Fathers educational status, monthly income, birth order were factors associated with stunting. Zone, district as well as health facilities should in tervene on nutrition related services.

Undernutrition, earlymarriage, DamotGaleWoreda