Infant rearing practices in south India: A longitudinal study

Abstract

Background:Rearing practices are a major determinant of nutritional and health status of infants. Therefore these practices need to be better understood.Objectives:To find out infant rearing practices in the study area.Materials and Methods:A longitudinal study was conducted on a birth cohort of 194 infants. Information on rearing practices and anthropometric measurements were recorded every month for a period of 1 year.Results:Only 67 (34.5%) newborns were breast fed within half an hour of delivery. Prelacteal feeds was given to 65 (33.5%) newborns and this was seen more among home deliveries (P=0.018). Demand feeding was practiced by 169 (87.1%) mothers. Exclusive breast feeding (EBF) for 6 months was practiced by 81 (41.7%) mothers. Bottle feeding was seen in 7 (3.6%) cases. Weight gain during infancy was found to be maximum when infants were EBF for 6 months (P<0.001) and weaned with semi-solid and solid diet alone in the following 6 months (P=0.002). Gain in all anthropometric measurements was more in the initial 6 months of infancy compared to latter. Four (2.1%) infants were malnourished. Oil massage before bath was practiced by 189 (97.4%) mothers. Over 50% mothers practiced oil application to eyes or ears of infants. Delayed initiation of bath (beyond 1week) was seen in 15 (7.7%) cases.Conclusion:Faulty rearing practices need to be corrected in order to improve the health status of infants.

Feeding Practices and Morbidity Pattern of Infants in a Rural Area of Puducherry-A Follow Up Study

“…In the present study it was observed that, majority of the mothers breastfed their infants on demand (80.1%), similar to the observations made by Joseph et al [14] in Bangalore (87%) and Bandyopadhayay S K et al in West Bengal [23].…”

“…In the present study, 2.2% newborns did not receive colostrum even after two days of birth. Similar observations were reported from two studies conducted in Bangalore [13,14]. However, studies from other regions of India and other countries also showed even higher percentage of mothers discarding colostrum for first two days [10,14,[16][17][18].…”

“…However in the present study it was observed that, exclusive breastfeeding was 72%, which was higher than national figures and nearly equal to DLHS-3 [19] for Pondicherry (66%) and Tamil Nadu (68%) [19]. Studies conducted in Haryana, Karnataka, Bangalore, West Bengal observed lower rates for exclusive breastfeeding being 20.2%, 57.1%, 40% and 57.9% respectively [13,14,23,26].…”

“…Studies from rural Egypt, South Nepal and Pakistan [8][9][10] reported that the percentage of newborns that were given pre-lacteal feeds was 44%, 55.6% and 87.6% respectively, which were higher compared to the present study. Studies from other parts of India also reported the practice of giving prelacteal feeds [11][12][13][14].…”

Current practices on infant feeding in rural areas of Assam, India: a community based cross sectional study

“…20 While Joseph N et al in their study found that 41.7% mothers exclusively breastfed (EBF) their infants for 6 months. 21 On bivariate analysis of certain maternal and sociodemographic factors influencing EBF it was seen that exclusive breast feeding was significantly associated with 4 or more numbers of ANC visits, primipara mothers, higher educational status of mother, younger age and lower socioeconomic status of the mothers. Yadavannavar MC et al in their study also observed similar results.…”