Feeding and weaning practices among mothers of under-five children in selected primary health care centres in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti, Nigeria

Abstract

An appropriate diet is necessary in the growth and health status of children especially in the first two years of life. This study determined the feeding and weaning practices among mothers of children below the age of five years in two selected Primary Healthcare Centres in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria. The study design was descriptive and cross sectional using an interviewer-administered questionnaire, 200 mothers who were purposely selected participated in the study. Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used for data analysis. Findings from the study revealed that the main practice of feeding of infants was breastfeeding, the majority of the mothers started to wean their children at about 6 – 7 months. Also, the major type of weaning practiced by mothers was abrupt weaning, majority of the mothers had good knowledge of feeding and weaning including how beneficial exclusive breastfeeding is, though it is just a few of them that practice exclusive breastfeeding. Therefore, complementary feeding education that will involve the use of various media most especially the primary health facilities is paramount for optimal health of infants. Also teaching should focus on the type of weaning and mothers should be educated on the consequences of abruptly weaning a child.

Knowledge and Practices of Infant and Toddler Weaning among Mothers Attending Pediatrics Department of A Tertiary Care Hospital In Lahore

“…Our study shows significant association between knowledge and practices of weaning and total number of children (p-values= 0.000 and 0.000 respectively) similar to findings of research papers with p-value<0.001 5 , p-value=0.043 20 and p-value= 0.013 22 upholds this where as another. Study having p-value>0.05 18 is contrary to this.…”

“…Age of children had weighty association with knowledge and practices of transitional feeding (p values= 0.000, and 0.000 respectively). Similarly, studies showed Adjusted OR=7.04 13 , p-value=0.000 20 , p-value<0.001 28 suggesting strong statistical association between these two variables. Residential status of respondent shows statistically significant association (p-value=0.028) with the overall knowledge of mothers about weaning but there is no significant association of weaning practices with it.…”

Complementary feeding pattern and its determinants among mothers in selected primary health centers in the urban metropolis of Ekiti State, Nigeria

“…It has been established that malnutrition is one of the leading causes of death for many of the world's infants, accounting for over a third of the world's under-five deaths 1 – 3 . The incidence of malnutrition in the first two years of life has been directly linked with inadequate maternal breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices, along with high infectious disease levels 2 , 4 .…”

Maternal complementary feeding practices and anthropometric status of children (6-23 months) in Abakaliki Nigeria, a facility based study

“…In the present study, high prevalence (62.5%) of minimum dietary diversity attained among children 6-23 months compares well with a study from one city in India (Singhal et al 2015) which reported >70%. However, lower ranges were reported in 2018 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) (22.6%) and other studies (13-46%) (NPC and ICF, 2019;Bentley et al, 2015;Mukhopadhyay et al, 2013;Mondal et al, 2014;Parashar et al, 2015). Poor dietary diversity is a common practice in poor populations because the main complementary diets are mainly starch based staples, with few animal products and vegetables (Arimond and Ruel, 2004).…”

“…Complementary feeding practices and nutritional status in Nigeria are well documented (Omotoye and Adesanmi, 2019;Sosanya et al, 2019;Ibrahim et al, 2019;Tobi et al, 2019;Oluwaseyi et al, 2019;Yusuf and Jibrin, 2020), however there is a dearth of recent evidence in Southeast Nigeria (Ayogu et al, 2015;Okereke et al, 2015;Ndiokwelu et al, 2014). Also, a good number of these local studies failed to apply either the revised WHO infant and young child feeding recommendations or the WHO 2006 growth reference in their data generation (Iheme et al, 2021).…”