Knowledge, attitude, practice of mothers and caregivers regarding infant and young child feeding in Mongolia / Монголын Анагаах Ухаан

ABSTRACT

Introduction. More than 3.5 million mothers and children under five die unnecessarily each year due to the underlying cause of under nutrition, and millions more are permanently disabled by the physical and mental effects of a poor dietary intake in the earliest months of life. Malnutrition has a negative impact on the physical and intellectual development which can further affect health, living potentials and the quality of life. It has been established that to reduce child mortality and to prevent illnesses related to malnutrition the most effective actions are to breastfeed, feed with proper complementary foods, enrich child’s diet with vitamin A, zinc and other necessary vitamins and mineral supplements, and to treat chronic malnutrition. This can be achieved by implementing internationally reputed projects and programs. Goal. To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of mothers in the project areas towards, infant and young child feeding.Materials and Methods. This survey conducted in each of 5 soums of Gobi-Altai, Sukhbaatar, Dundgobi, Tuv, and Arkhangai aimags and each of 5 khoroos of Chingeltei and Songinokhairkhan districts of Ulaanbaatar city. Survey recruited a total of 1077 mothers and caregivers of children aged 0-35 months.Results. 7 in 10 mothers participating in the study have “insufficient” level of knowledge of feeding young children and this is related to the mother’s education level. 2. 21.8% of mothers and caregivers were aware of the recommendations of breastfeeding the child within an hour after birth and 38.6% were not aware of exclusive breastfeeding until 6 months of age. 1 in 4 mothers participating in the survey (25.2%) had the wrong understanding of feeding a child 1-2 times a day while complementary feeding 43.6% of mothers in Sukhbaatar aimag, and 33.8% in Gobi-Altai aimag had this insufficient knowledge of frequency of breast feeding while giving complementary food to the baby. Half (50.3%) of mothers and caregivers did not know the correct amount of food to be given at one time to feed a child and this knowledge was insufficient across all aimags and districts. Knowledge of illnesses caused by nutrition and their preventions was insufficient among mothers in all aimags and districts.Conclusions:1. 65, 7% of mothers exclusively breastfed their children until the age of 6 months. The percentage of exclusively breastfeeding in districts is similar to the national average; however, in rural aimags it is twice higher.2. Only 41, 5% of children up to 3 years of age were fed with complementary food at right time, while 42, 8% - too early and 15%- too late.3. Only 8, 7% of mothers and caretakers have correct practice of feeding children of 12-23 months old more than 5 times per day, which is not sufficient indicator.