Complete coverage and covering completely: Breast feeding and complementary feeding: Knowledge, attitude, and practices of mothers
Journal Title: Medical Journal Armed Forces - Year 2018, Vol 74, Issue 1
Abstract
Background: Knowing current trends for timely comprehensive action for health promotion practices is an important prerequisite for medical practitioners and policy makers. Methods: A survey of mothers at a Tertiary Care Hospital in central India. Results: On the knowledge front >83.75% of the mothers studied showed good knowledge about breastfeeding and complementary feeding. Similar, but not as encouraging, were the results about attitude, with 76.25% of mothers having a positive attitude. The results of the practices part were varied. The WHO indicators assessed were 'early initiation of breastfeeding' (68.75%), 'exclusive breastfeeding under 6 months' (85%) (however exclusive breast feeding for first 6 months was carried out by only 36.25%), 'introduction of solid, semi-solid or soft foods' (48.75%), 'continued breastfeeding at 1 year' (63.75%) and 'continued breastfeeding at 2 years' (6.25%). Conclusions: There is a discrepancy between knowledge and practices. The exclusive breast feeding rates are far from the ideal and there is a decline of continued breast feeding beyond 15 months. This calls for sustained efforts with the aim – 'cover all and cover completely'. The ideal WHO indicator for exclusive breast feeding should be 'exclusive breastfeeding for first 6 months' which will provide information about the completeness of this ideal practice.
Authors and Affiliations
Sunil Jain
Keywords
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- EP ID EP639428
- DOI 10.1016/j.mjafi.2017.03.003
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