Study on infant feeding practices among mothers in rural areas of Faizabad District (U.P.), India

Abstract

The present study was undertaken to find out socio-demographic profile of respondents and to estimate the current feeding practices including breastfeeding, pre-lacteal feeding and complementary feeding. A cross-sectional study was conducted in four blocks namely Haringtonganj, Amaniganj, Bikapur and Sohawal of Faizabad District in 2015. Total 352 lactating mother having children’s aged from 6 months to 2 years were interviewed to collect information on pre designed and pretested proforma. The data was tabulated on Microsoft Excel sheet and analysed using chi-square test. Study findings showed that mostly 43.75% were in the age range of 20-25 years. More than half (58.51%) of the mothers were literate and majority 96.87% mothers were housewives. All mothers had done breastfeeding in which 73.58% mothers continued breastfeeding after 6 months at the time of study. Majority 89.49% responding mothers were given exclusive breastfeeding, 81.82% had given colostrum and 38.64% gave pre-lacteal feed to their baby. Most of the children (80.11%) were taking weaning food but majority 89.36% mothers did not prepare any special food for their children. The association between education of mothers and infant feeding practices was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). The study showed that mostly mothers adopted correct feeding practices at some extent and these practices were much influenced by education of mothers. So it is very necessary to imparting nutrition and health education to the mothers.