Breast-feeding practices in a tribal community of Melghat region in Maharastra State.

ABSTRACT

This cross sectional study was conducted at Chitta-Ranjan Das Mobile Hospital camp stationed at Dharni, to assess the current status of breast-feeding practices in a tribal community of Melghat region of Maharashtra State, using the key Breast-feeding indicators as recommended by W.H.O. working group on Infant Feeding in 1991. The tribal mothers of 462 children in the age group of 0-24 months were interviewed for breast-feeding practices. 69.69% of the children received their first breast feed after 24 hrs. of birth, however none of the children was breast fed within 2 hrs. of birth. The exclusive breast-feeding rate was 0.22 and the predominant breast-feeding rate was 0.79. Timely complementary feeding rate was 0.22. The continued breast-feeding rates at 1 year and 2 years were 0.88 and 0.64, respectively. The ever breast-fed rate, timely first-suckling rate and exclusive breast-feeding rate were 1.00, 0.00 and 0.22 respectively. The median duration of breast-feeding was 23 months. Hence this study confirms the traditional breast-feeding practices in Indian culture.