Assessment of Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices of Caregiver’s in Jashore City, Bangladesh

Abstract

Since infant and young child feeding practices play an important role in ameliorating childhood nutrition, an exploratory and descriptive study has thus been conducted employing a previously developed questionnaire at Ad-din shisu Hospital, Jashore, Bangladesh to obtain better insights about the breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices among infant and young child feeding caregivers. Out of 260 babies, 54% were female and 46% were male. Nearly all caregivers were found having the idea that breast milk is the best food for newborn babies. Around 81.9% of caregivers think that breast milk contains all the nutrients the baby needs to flourish, but in case of protection from disease, only 18.1% of caregivers think that it protects the baby from certain diseases. Around 46.9% mothers practiced early initiation of breastfeeding and they offered breast milk to their newborn right away (within one hour) after delivery, 53.5% lactating mothers had proper knowledge about breastfeeding methods, 39.6% mothers never practiced burping after breastfeeding, 66.4% mothers had normal delivery, 33.6% mothers had caesarian section, 99% mothers offered colostrums to their babies and only 1% of them didn’t give the colostrums. Besides, 88.8% continued breastfeeding up to 24 months or more along with 83.8% caregivers starting complementary feeding from six months, 55.4% caregivers said baby’s immune system is less developed, so they get attacked by infection easily and 44.6% caregivers said “their tummies are vulnerable to infection”, and 48.8% of the caregivers followed the type of hygiene required. Our findings revealed information on the knowledge, attitude, and practices of the caregiver’s towards breastfeeding and complementary feeding.