Breastfeeding practices and factors associated with it: A cross sectional study among tribal women in khardi primary health centre, Thane, India
India is home to large number of under-five deaths and underweight children in the world which is mainly because of improper breastfeeding practices. Hence the study was conducted to assess the breastfeeding practices in tribal settings so that proper interventions can be planned by the health sy...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2012
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4760/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4760/ http://journalarticle.ukm.my/4760/1/vol%25202%2520no%25201%25202012_15.pdf |
| Summary: | India is home to large number of under-five deaths and underweight children
in the world which is mainly because of improper breastfeeding practices.
Hence the study was conducted to assess the breastfeeding practices in tribal
settings so that proper interventions can be planned by the health system staff
to reduce infant morbidity and mortality.
Methods Cross-sectional study of three months duration from June 2011 to August
2011was conducted in tribal area of Khardi in Thane district amongst women
who had delivered within one year of the study. This study was conducted in
Khardi Primary Health Centre (PHC) which comprises of eight sub-centres.
Five sub-centres among these eight sub-centres were selected randomly using
lottery method. All tribal women, with infants between six months to twelve
months of age, registered with these five sub-centres during their antenatal
period were included as subjects. 153 such women were identified using
universal sampling with the help of Auxillary Nurse Midwives (ANM) and
Anganwadi Workers (AWW). 21 women were excluded due to non
availability. House to house visits were paid to these subjects & they were
then interviewed face to face using a questionnaire after taking their informed
consent. Dependent variable was breastfeeding practices including exclusive
breastfeeding and independent variables were all the socio-demographic
factors influencing breastfeeding. Analysis was done with SPSS version 16.
Results More than half (67.4%) infants were exclusively breast fed (EBF) up to six
months of age. Pre-lacteal feeds were given to 23.5% infants while colostrum
was not given to 15.2% infants. Practice of EBF was found to be significantly
associated with advice regarding EBF during antenatal period, education
status, parity of mother and sex of child.
Conclusions 67.4% of the infants were exclusively breastfed till six months of age.
Religion, education of the mother, number of children of study subjects, sex
of the baby and knowledge about EBF was found to be significantly
associated with exclusive breastfeeding. |
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