An Assessment of the Breastfeeding Practices and Infant Feeding Pattern among Mothers in Mauritius

Abstract

Proper breastfeeding practices are effective ways for reducing childhood morbidity and mortality. While many mothers understand the importance of breastfeeding, others are less knowledgeable on the benefits of breastfeeding and weaning. The aim in here is to assess breastfeeding pattern, infant formula feeding pattern, and weaning introduction in Mauritius and to investigate the factors that influence infant nutrition. 500 mothers were interviewed using a questionnaire which was designed to elicit information on infant feeding practices. Statistical analyses were done using SPSS (version 13.0), whereby chi-square tests were used to evaluate relationships between different selected variables. The prevalence of breastfeeding practice in Mauritius has risen from 72% in 1991 to 93.4% as found in this study, while only 17.9% breastfed their children exclusively for the first 6 months, and the mean duration of EBF (exclusive breastfeeding) is 2.10 months. Complementary feeding was more commonly initiated around 4–6 months (75.2%). Despite the fact that 60.6% of mothers initiate breastfeeding and 26.1% of mothers are found to breastfeed up to 2 years, the practice of EBF for the first 6 months is low (17.9%). Factors found to influence infant feeding practices are type of delivery, parity, alcohol consumption, occupation, education, and breast problems.

Effect of two different nursing care approaches on reduction of breast engorgement among postnatal women

“…Feeding early and feeding often will help to make sure good milk transfer is occurring. Also, Motee et al, [38] added that proper breastfeeding practices are effective ways for reducing childhood morbidity and mortality. While many mothers understand the importance of breastfeeding, others are less knowledgeable about the benefits of breastfeeding.…”

Knowledge and Practices of Exclusive Breastfeeding among Women in Rural Uttar Pradesh

“…Antenatal check-ups also had a significant role and influence on the early initiation of breast feeding as it was seen that those participants who had at least one ANC were more likely to initiate early breast feeding as compared to those who did not go for any ANC [47][48][49].…”

The status of nutritional knowledge, attitude and practices associated with complementary feeding in a post‐conflict development phase setting: The case of Acholi sub‐region of Uganda

“…The major effects of undernutrition are believed to occur during the first 2 years of human life. This is because, at this stage, undernutrition causes irreversible damage to physical, mental, and social development of the child transcending into reduced intellectual potential at adulthood (Motee, Ramasawmy, Pugo‐gunsam, & Jeewon, 2013; Semahegn, Tesfaye, & Bogale, 2014; WHO, 2010b; World Bank, 2006). Despite the well‐recognized importance of proper child nutrition to health well‐being and human capital development, child undernutrition has remained one of the main public health problems in developing countries (Müller & Krawinkel, 2005; Semahegn et al., 2014).…”