scholarly journals A cross sectional study on optimal infant and young child feeding practices with reference to WHO indicators in a rural area of Puducherry

Author(s):  
Arulprasad Radjasegarane ◽  
Anandaraj Rajagopal ◽  
Prakash Mathiyalagen ◽  
Kavita Vasudevan

Background: Optimal infant and young child feeding practices (IYCF) are essential to address the increasing burden of malnutrition and for the overall development of the children. The present study was conducted to estimate the proportion of optimal infant and young child feeding practices among rural children aged 0 to 23 months and study the associated socio demographic factors.Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 360 children in the age group of 0 to 23 months in a rural field practice area of a medical college in Puducherry. Data on IYCF practices were collected using a standardized tool developed by WHO. Core and optional IYCF indicators were calculated. Chi-square test and Fishers’ exact test were used as tests of significance.Results: Almost 88.0% of infants were initiated early on breastfeeding and 90.8% were exclusively breastfed for six months. Children who were continuously breastfed at one year and two years were 77.4% and 22.4% respectively. About 75.0% were introduced with solid or semisolid foods at 6 to 8 months of age. Among children aged 6 to 23 months, 77.3% had the recommended minimum dietary diversity, 81.3% had the minimum meal frequencies, while 57.7% received the minimum acceptable diet and only 39.4% consumed iron rich foods. Gender was significantly associated with the practice of continued breastfeeding at one year, adequate minimum dietary diversity and minimum meal frequency.Conclusions: The core and optional IYCF indicators were acceptably good in the initial six months of life but thereafter showed suboptimal levels, which should be emphasized among the mothers or primary care givers.

F1000Research ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 877
Author(s):  
Zabinah Nabirye ◽  
Frank Kiwanuka ◽  
Zainah Nakaye ◽  
Ivan Kamurasi ◽  
Agbele Alaba Tolulope

Background: The benefits of adherence to optimal infant and young child feeding (IYCF) to both the mothers and their infants below two years are well documented. However, compliance to optimal IYCF practices has been noted to vary in different settings. This study sought to establish factors influencing mothers’ adherence to optimal infant and young child feeding practices for babies below two years in Mpigi town council- Mpigi District. Methods: The study was a cross-sectional study carried out among 264 mothers of babies between six months to two years of age attending postnatal care units of health facilities in Mpigi town council, Uganda: Mpigi Health Center (HC) IV and Kyaali HC III. Purposive sampling method was used to select the health centers while simple random sampling was then used to select the sample from the selected centers. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Data entry and analysis was performed using SPSS version 16. Results: 264 participants were invited to participate in the study, 100% of these fully completed the survey. The majority of the mothers were aged 20 to 34 years (80.3%). After scoring each participant using the four characteristics which included: initiation of breastfeeding within the first hour following birth, exclusive breastfeeding up to 6 months followed by continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods upto 2 years and beyond, the majority of the participants were adherent (79.6%) to IYCF practices while 20.4% were non adherent to IYCF practices. Conclusion: A good estimate of adherence to optimal IYCF practices was revealed in this study. Sustaining well-established policies to support IYCF programmes is recommended to maintain optimal IYCF practices.


Author(s):  
Fasna Liaquath Ali ◽  
Ravivarman Govindasamy ◽  
Suganthi Soubramanian

Background: Adequate nutrition in first 24 months through optimal Infant and Young Child feeding is fundamental for the development of the child. Hence assessment of Infant and Young child feeding practices rank among the most effective intervention is to meet the deficit improve the child health. Hence this study is conducted with the objective to assess the prevalence and factors influencing infant and young child feeding practices among the rural mothers of children aged less than two years.Methods: A cross sectional study was undertaken in the rural area of Kancheepuram district, Tamil Nadu from January 2017 to August 2017. 247 children of age less than two years were selected by two stage random sampling method. Data was collected house to house using pretested questionnaire and WHO infant and young child feeding questionnaire. Proportions were calculated and Chi square was applied.Results: The median age of the study participants were 9±7.1 months. 226 (91.5 %) were given colostrum and 163 (66%) were initiated breastfeeding within one hour after birth. 58.6% of children were introduced on soft/solid/semi solid food at the end of 6 to 8 months. In multiple logistic regression education of the mother, working status of the mother, number of antennal visits and place of delivery were associated with appropriate feeding practices.Conclusions: Maternal decision determines how an infant to be fed but it reflects the atmosphere by how they are influenced and adopted the decision. 


Author(s):  
Samyak Sahu ◽  
Subrat K. Pradhan ◽  
Sadhu C. Panda

Background: Indicators of infant and young child and feeding (IYCF) practices have been devised by WHO in order to help objectively assess the prevalence of these practices in the population. IYCF practices play a vital role in the control of infant and child deaths. This study was undertaken to assess the IYCF practices among children aged less than 2 years among the tribal population. Objective of this study to measure the indicators of IYCF practices in children in the 0-23 months age group.Methods: It is a community based, cross sectional study of infant and young child feeding practices among tribal mothers having children younger than 24 months, in Sambalpur district of Odisha from October 2017 to December 2019. The study participants were tribal mothers having children less than 24 months of age. The sample size was 384.Results: Among the study participants, 93.5% belonged to the 21-30 years age bracket, 37.5% had middle school certificate education and 75.3% belonged to the upper lower socioeconomic class. The indicators were continued breastfeeding at 1 year (100%), continued breastfeeding at 2 years (100%) and children ever breastfed (100%), exclusive breastfeeding (98.71%) and bottle feeding (16.36%). A significant association was found between delivery by lower segment caesarean section and delayed initiation of breastfeeding.Conclusions: The indicators related to breastfeeding and complementary feeding were adequate except for minimum dietary diversity and minimum adequate diet.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (04) ◽  
pp. 17834-17853
Author(s):  
Edward Kansiime ◽  
◽  
MK Kabahenda ◽  
E Bonsi ◽  
◽  
...  

Despite improvements in food production and healthcare services, the burden of malnutrition in Uganda has for the last 30yearsremained unacceptably high with rates of stunting (chronic undernutrition) and anemia (proxy for micronutrient deficiency) currently estimated at 29% and 53%,respectively among young children aged 6-59 months. Considering that both undernutrition and over nutrition are greatly attributed to monotonous diets characterized by limited dietary diversity and overdependence on starchy refined grains or roots as staples,there is need to improve the population’s awareness of appropriate dietary practices. To improve nutrition education, the Infant and Young Child-feeding national counseling cards for community volunteers (IYCF cards)that were developed by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), are currently the standard package used in Uganda’s health sector to educate caregivers on appropriate child-feeding practices. In this study, the effectiveness of a three-group food guide was evaluated against IYCF cards.A randomized, controlled intervention trial engaged three randomly selected distant groups of child-caregiver pairs (n=40) concurrently in one of three treatments namely: (i) nutrition education using a three-foodgroup guide (FG), (ii) nutrition education using age-appropriate IYCF cards, and (iii) negative control group that engaged in hair-plaiting sessions. At baseline, all groups had randomly selected caregivers of children aged 6-14 months and were met once a week for five consecutive weeks during the intervention. Caregivers were interviewed at baseline and 2 months after the interventions to determine changes in child-feeding practices while their children were concurrently measured to determine changes in their nutritional status.At baseline, caregivers in the three treatment arms exhibited inappropriate child-feeding practices indicated by low child-feeding index (CFI) scores,which were also related to poor nutritional status of their children. After the interventions, children in FG group were given more varied animal-source foods than those in IYCF cards group (p =0.02). Compared to controls, caregivers in FG group gave their children significantly more snacks (p = 0.01), their child-feeding practices indicated by CFI scores significantly improved (p = 0.001) and their children exhibited better growth patterns indicated by weight-for-age (p = 0.02) and MUAC-for-age (p = 0.03) Z-scores.These findings,therefore,indicate that the three-group food guide is more likely to improve child-feeding practices and growth patterns than IYCF cards.Hence, there is need to integrate the food guide into IYCF materials to foster child-feeding practices and growth.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Otgonjargal Damdinbaljir

Abstract Objectives To assess the indicators of infant and young child feeding practices among 0- 23 months old children. Methods This cross-sectional studies was conducted all 21 provinces of the 4 economic regions of the country and capital Ulaanbaatar city in 2017. In total, 350 children aged less than two years selected through revised 125-cluster sampling using of the indicators for assessing infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices were revised during the International Consensus Meeting organized be WHO in 2007 Results The proportions of infants with early initiation of breastfeeding (83.7%) and exclusive breastfeeding under six months (58.3%) and the prevalence continued breastfeeding at 2 years 47.3% were low. Conclusions The main problems revealed from the study were inappropriate complementary feeding practices. Our findings have highlighted the need to encourage mothers to enrich their traditional wheat- based complementary foods add more animal source foods and vegetables. Funding Sources The financial and technical support from UNICEF. Supporting Tables, Images and/or Graphs


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