Background: Maternal nutritional knowledge may influence the development of chronic child malnutrition. Without previous investigations in Peru, this study seeks to find such an association. Methods: Cross-sectional study. Participants were mothers of San Juan de Miraflores accompanied by their children. Nutritional status was assessed using the WHO charts; level of nutritional knowledge through validated questionnaire (alpha de Cronbach=0.76). Logistic regression was used to measure association of knowledge, and other variables, with chronic malnutrition. Results: 150 mothers were surveyed, with age ranging between 19 and 56 (median of 30 years). 69.3% had high school education, 67.1% are cohabitants, and 75.5% are unemployed. Of 150 children, 8.7% had chronic malnutrition. We found that nutritional knowledge is inversely associated with child nutritional status (OR 0.28; p>0.05). We fo...