Initiation of neonatal feeding at maternity hospitals in Egypt

ABSTRACT

This work was conducted on 500 mothers and their respective neonates who were delivered and randomly recruited from different maternity hospitals at Cairo, so as to identify the type and time of initiation of neonatal feeding. A predesigned questionnaire was used, based on WHO formulation, to collect data from mothers about initiation of neonatal feeding. The study revealed 57 percent of mothers were practicing colostrum feeding. However, almost half of mothers [46.9 percent] ignored the value of giving colostrum, and 0.3 percent of mothers denied completely its value. Prelacteal feeds, mainly dextrose 5 percent and/or surgary water, were given by the majority of mothers [92.4 percent]. A high percentage of mothers [70 percent] initiated breastfeeding 24 hours after delivery while those who initiated <1 hour after delivery were only 1.4 percent. So, it is assumable that the practice of [BF] among mothers was higher than their grades of knowledge and attitude [P<0.05]. Delayed initiation of [BF] was owed to maternal causes; no milk let down [64 percent], mothers exhaustion [31.4 percent] and breast problems [30.5 percent] followed by medical factors as postpartum medication [33.6 percent], medical advice [16.4 percent] and no rooming-in practice [10.6 percent]. Neonatal factors as prematurity [3.6 percent] and refusal of newborn to suck [1.6 percent] represented the minority of conditions. Exclusive [BF] was practiced only by 7.6 percent of mothers, while 78 percent of neonates were predominantly breastfed and 4 percent of neonates were formula fed. Therefore this study attributes most of the factors impeding the practice of early initiation of BF either to the lack of knowledge of mothers or the lack of antenatal and postnatal care for both mothers and their infants