Knowledge versus practices of child feeding among women of under two years children

Abstract

Background: It is most important that appropriate feeding practices are critical for growth and development of children especially in the first two years of life. There is less evidence found in the field of nutrition and hygiene practices in the Nepalese context and also in the specific communities. Objective: To assess the feeding knowledge and practices among the mothers of under two years children in the Chaudhary community. Method and Material: The total 103 responded mother of under two years children were sampled from ward no 3, Omsatiya, Rupandehi based on census data collection. Mixed method was used for quantitative data collection and Key Informant Interview (KII) was used to collect qualitative data with the help of respective tools. Results: It is really inspiring evidence that 99 percent mothers are currently feeding breast milk to their baby. About 38% of mothers have knowledge but only 26% did breastfeed to their children within one hour after delivery. Nearly 60% of mothers who have knowledge on giving complementary foods with breast milk after six months. But nearly 18% have different practice than ideally recommended. Very consistently, knowledge versus practice, only 34 percent mother have both knowledge and practice of complimentary foods three times in a day. The majority 67 percent respondents fed only breast milk whereas 33 percent were feeding fish/meat along with breast milk to the child during sick period. Conclusion: There are poor feeding and hygiene knowledge and practices found in the study population. So, every policy makers and frontline actors must understand the importance of complementary feeding and take actions forward to address the existing poor practice of infant and young child feeding in the community. The focus should be on dietary diversity and minimum meal frequency under the minimum acceptable diet recommended by WHO. Funding Statement: The author has not received any funding support for this research and is solely conducted for the partial fulfilment of the master program.