Infant feeding practices in an urban tertiary care hospital: A descriptive longitudinal study

Abstract

Background: Infant and young child feeding are the corner stone for child development. More than a third of the world’s undernourished children reside in India. Inadequate infant and young child feeding practices with inadequate care and management of common illnesses contributes to malnutrition. Objective: To study the prevailing infant feeding practices and determine influence of factors on infant feeding in a tertiary care hospital. Materials and Methods: A descriptive longitudinal follow-up study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital between November 2010 and April 2012. Maternal and baby’s profiles were obtained using oral questionnaire after birth by personal one-to-one interview. These cases were followed up for their infant feeding practices till 1 year of age in outpatient department and also by telephonic conversation. Continous variables were analysed by mean and SD. For categorical variable frequency and percentage were determined. Results: 61.25% mothers had initiated breastfeeding within 1 h. Prelacteal feed was given to 28.6% babies. 61.5% had initiated complementary feed at 6 months. Bottle feeding was preferred mode of feeding. There was a statistically significant association between initiation of breastfeeding and parity (p=0.022) and type ofdelivery (p<0.0001), religion and complementary feeding introduction (p<0.001), religion and duration of exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) (p=0.003), occupation and EBF duration (p=0.005), education (p=0.015), and religion (p=0.001) were associated with prelacteal feeds. Conclusions: Infant feeding practices observed from the study include early initiation of breastfeeding, appropriate duration of EBF, and timely introduction of complementary feed. Practice of prelacteal and bottle feeding was seen. Infant feeding practices are found to be influenced by several socio-demographic factors.

A study on comparison of feeding practices among rural and urban children and its effect on their nutritional status in western UP

“…Our findings are comparable to Cacodkar J at Goa, 17 where 36.09% of the mothers continued breastfeeding for a period of 12 to 24 months & Hegde J at Karnataka where higher no of mothers (90.9%) continued to breastfeed the infant even after 1 year of age. 18 But the figures were quite high as compared to our study. It was also found that underwt& stunting was higher in those children where breastfeeding was given for less than six months.…”

“…According to another study by Vyas S in Uttarakhand EBF was practiced by only 5% of the mothers till six months of age. 20 Our figures are quite low as compared to a study by Hegde J at Karnataka, 18 & Rathore V 21 where 58% & 52.8% babies were given EBF for 6 months and still far short of the 11th plan target of 90%, all-India average of 46.4% and that of Uttarakhand (31.2%) too. Our study revealed a significant relationship between exclusive breastfeeding till six months and a lower prevalence of underweight and stunting in children.…”