Handling, Storage and Use of Expressed Breastmilk among Working Mothers of Infants in Anantnag, Kashmir

ABSTRACT

Rising number of mothers are expressing their breastmilk to feed their infants when away from them, which presents new issues for infant feeding. Having sound knowledge regarding expression, storage and use of breast milk is fi rst step towards promoting practice of expressed breast milk, which in turn promotes exclusive breastfeeding. Primary concern in this is handling, storage, and warming of expressed breastmilk. So all breastfeeding mothers should be motivated to learn different techniques of expression, storage and use of expressed breastmilk. The settings chosen for present study were 18 villages of Dachnipora block of district Anantnag (J&K) with a sample size of 50 mothers of infants. This setting was selected as per feasibility & availability of study subjects. A questionnaire was used for data collection. The study revealed that 46 percent of subjects had inadequate knowledge level, 54 percent had moderate knowledge level' and none of subjects had adequate knowledge level regarding expression, storage and use of expressed breast milk. A signifi cant association of knowledge level of mothers of infants was found with demographic variables, parity and previous experience with expression and storage at p'le;0.05 level and no association was found with variables like age, educational status, nature of job and monthly family income. To conclude, mothers of infants had insignifi cant level of knowledge about expression, handling, storage and use of expressed breast milk. If they are provided and supported with adequate and appropriate information from the beginning of their motherhood, they will make exclusive breastfeeding a success.