Knowledge and practice of nursing mother`s regarding complementary feeding

Abstract

Complementary feeding is the systemic process of introduction of semisolid or solid food in infant at the right time in addition to mother’s milk in order to provide needed nutrition to the baby. A cross sectional study was conducted from January to December, 2020 to assess the level of knowledge and practice of nursing mothers regarding complementary feeding. Total 177 nursing mother were selected purposively and interviewed with a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire. Face to face interview was conducted to collect data. P-value less than 0.05 were set as statistically significant. The knowledge and practice score were categorized into good (≥70%), satisfactory (50 to 70%), and poor (≤50%). Out of 177 respondents, majority 109(61.6%) had satisfactory knowledge regarding complementary feeding, 33(18.6%) had good knowledge and rest of them 35(19.8%) had poor knowledge regarding complementary feeding among the nursing mother. On the other hand 62.7% respondents had poor Practices, 24.9% had satisfactory practices and 12.4% had good practices regarding complementary feeding among the nursing mothers. There was highly significant association between knowledge and practice of complementary feeding (p <.000). Nursing mother’s knowledge regarding complementary feeding time was inadequate and practices were inappropriate. . It is the responsibility of health professionals to pass on the current information about proper infant feeding to mothers/care takers for promoting the healthy complementary feeding of the breastfeed child.