pattern of feeding among infants [6 months-2 years] attending MCH center

ABSTRACT

This study was conducted on a systematic random sample of 400 mothers having infants below 2 years of age attending MCH center of El-Mahkama for vaccination. The mean age of the mothers was 24 +/- 5 years and for infants it was 16.5 +/- 2.5 months. The majority of women [97.2%] started breast feeding, however, only 74.5% of them successfully continued. The mean duration of breast feeding among illiterate mothers was 17.3 +/- 5.8 months, whereas it was 11.5 +/- 5.1 months among highly educated mothers. The main reasons for trend away from breast feeding before 24 months in this study was the wrongly thinking of the mothers that the period of infant's lactation is enough [32.8%] followed by workload of the mothers [21.1%], while scanty milk represented 9.4% only. The study showed that the lower social class tends to postpone weaning process beyond 6 months compared with middle and high social classes which usually start weaning practices earlier. Stepwise regression analysis was done for analyzing the factors that were assumed to affect weaning practice and revealed that social class, maternal education, sex of the baby, birth order and lastly the living in nuclear or extended families were the most important factors arranged, respectively, according to their relative importance