Infant feeding and weaning practices in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

The infant feeding and weaning patterns of 175 Saudi Arabian children from good socioeconomic status was obtained through interviewing their mothers. Data revealed that 91.4% of children were breast fed [11.4% exclusively breast fed + 80.0% supplemented breast feeding] and 8.6% were artificially fed. Breast feeding continued for more than two years. About 74% of the children were still breast fed in their second year of life. The mean age of complete weaning was 16.4 months. Supplementary feeding started early where 53.1% of children were first given their food supplement in the age period of 3-5 months. Two third of mothers were experiencing the correct practices in feeding and weaning their infants