Breastfeeding Practices, Demographic Variables, and Their Association with Morbidities in Children

Appropriate feeding practices are the key contributor to reducing morbidities and mortalities in under-five children. A cross-sectional questionnaire based survey of mothers of children aged less than 5years was conducted in 781 mothers. More than half of mothers (57.5%) started feeding within an hour of birth, 55.9% gave exclusive breastfeeding for six months, 89.1% of the mothers stopped breastfeeding before two years of age, 18.2% of the mothers bottle-fed the babies, and 15.6% had problems during breastfeeding in first 6 months. Early initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth promoted exclusive breastfeeding, and breastfeeding for longer duration. Exclusive breastfeeding increased frequency of feeds. Multivariable logistic regression showed that initiation of breastfeeding after an hour of birth (p= 0.035), not providing exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months (p< 0.0001), unemployed mothers (p= 0.035), having two or more kids (p= 0.001), and complementary feeds given by person other than mother (p= 0.007) increased hospitalization. Starting breastfeeding after an hour of birth (p= 0.045), severe malnutrition (p= 0.018), and breastfeeding for < two years (p= 0.026) increased rates of diarrhea. Breastfeeding practices were not optimum and interventions to improve these practices need to be strengthened.