A cross sectional survey to analyze infant and young child feeding practices among mothers of Chottanikkara Panchayat
Background: This study was carried out to assess the practices of young mothers related to Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices (IYCF) in Chottanikkara Grama Panchayat.Methods: All mothers of infants and children upto 5 years in Chottanikkara Grama Panchayat who were registered under the Integrated Child development Services (ICDS) program for services were interviewed based on self-prepared questionnaire based on National guidelines for IYCF by Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP).Results: 277 ladies were interviewed. Of this 50% of ladies had undergone caesarean delivery. 60.7% of children had received prelacteals. Only less than 30% of infants had been given breast milk within one hour after delivery. 50% of the ladies exclusively breast fed their babies only below a period of four months. Around 50% of ladies started complementary feeding of child on 6th month of age, whereas around 30% started complementary feeding before 6 months and 20% started complementary feeding only after 6 months of age. 78.6% of ladies continued breast feeding till 2 years after delivery.Conclusions: The studied population was a small population who had used services of the anganwadi and ASHA workers. But there are many who are not properly utilizing these services. In both rural and urban areas more efforts are needed to encourage exclusive breast feeding, to avoid premature complementation and, in the urban areas to protect extended breast feeding.