Infant and young child feeding practices amongst children referred to the paediatric outpatient department

Background

Worldwide, sub-optimal breastfeeding still accounts for deaths of 1.4 million children aged less than five years. Optimal infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices have been recognised as the most important intervention for improving child survival and development. Causal association has been found between exclusive breastfeeding with infection-specific infant morbidity and mortality.

Methods

A cross sectional study was undertaken to assess the IYCF practices among 100 caregivers of children aged less than five years, using a semi-structured questionnaire, attending the Paediatric OPD.

Results

Children from higher income groups were not given colostrum at birth. 57% mothers started breastfeeding within an hour and 88% of the mothers admitted to have given prelacteal feed. Healthy complementary food was found to be given by most of the mothers. Prevalence of infections was found to be higher (p < 0.05) in children whose birth weight < 2.5 kg and in bottle fed children.

Conclusion

Traditional beliefs and practices, besides lack of knowledge regarding current feeding recommendations, were found to have played an important role in the feeding practices. Creating an enabling environment for comprehensive nutrition education of mothers by health care providers is required.