Fathers' Perception, Practice, and Challenges in Young Child Care and Feeding in Ethiopia.

Abstract

The role of fathers in proper nutrition of young children has not been a frequent topic of studies. Mothers are usually the primary caregivers for young children. However, the father is often responsible for the financial choices of the household, especially in developing countries; we wondered to what extent fathers were involved in child feeding. This study aimed to investigate the extent of perceptions, practices, and challenges of fathers from low-income settings in routine child care, particularly in relation to child-feeding practices. A qualitative study was conducted in northern Ethiopia. Ten fathers, who had children between 6 and 23 months, were participated in the study. To validate fathers' comments, 10 mothers (from different households) also participated. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were carried out. A thematic analysis was completed to identify emergent themes within the data. In general, traditional fathers, fathers in transition, and modern fathers are the 3 types of fathers identified based on their perception, practice, and challenges of routine child care and feeding. Our findings provide new insight to the literature in describing fathers' roles and challenges in routine child-care and feeding practices. We have developed a model that could help researchers, programmers, policy makers, and health workers to approach fathers in different child intervention research and plans. Our findings suggest that targeting fathers may be a worthwhile approach and that it seems justifiable to plan interventions involving fathers.