Breastfeeding pattern in a village in Assiut, Upper Egypt

ABSTRACT

This cross sectional study was done to profile breast-feeding pattern in El-Boora Village, Assiut Governorate. It included 300 infants and young children of less than 24 months of age. Their mothers were asked about infant feeding practices, including breast-feeding and complementary feeding patterns. Only 35.7% of the sample was breast- fed within an hour after delivery, but the majority [84%] began breast-feeding within the first day. Colostrum was the first food given to 71.7% of the sample. The prevalence of breast-feeding was found to be 80.3%. Only a minority of infants were exclusively breast-fed throughout the first six months of life. Exclusive breast- feeding rate at four months of age was 7.9% and decreased to 4.4% at six months. The majority of infants were given liquids, mainly plain water. So, full breast-feeding was found to be 60.5% at four months of age and 51.5% at six months. Timely complementary feeding rate was 76.2%. Continued breast-feeding rate [one year] was found to be 83.8%, while continued breast-feeding rate [two years] was 38.7%. Insufficient milk was the main reason given by mothers for the termination of breast-feeding [44.1%]. Most of the mothers accept breast-feeding as the best for the infant. The major problem was that the great majority of the mothers do not breast-feed exclusively in the first six months of the infant's life. So, the exclusive breast- feeding rate is very low and an intervention was highly recommended to increase it. These problems can be effectively encountered by appropriate health education, training of health workers and effective lactation management