تلخیص
Objective: To determine the effect of age, number of children and
educational status of mothers on breast feeding practices.
Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out in the
Department of Paediatric Medicine, Fatima Hospital, Baqai Medical
University Karachi from January 2012 to December 2012.After taking the
informed consent, 1872 mothers were included in the study with
convenience sampling technique. Only females who had at least one
child less than 2 years of age were included in the study while those
who refused to consent were excluded. Participants were interviewed
and performa was filled. Data analysis was done on SPSS version 21.
Descriptive analysis was performed and chi square test was used to find
association between categorical variables. P value less than 0.05 was
taken as significant.
Results: Majority participants belonged to the age group 20 – 30 years
n = 828 (44.2%). Mothers up to the age of 20 years were 387 (20.6%) and
out of those only 6 (1.6%) and 59 (15.2%) initiated breast feeding within
30 minutes and 30 to 60 minutes respectively as compared to mothers
above 40 years who were 242 (13%) and out of those 21 (8.7%) and 72
(29.7%) initiated breastfeeding within 30 minutes and 30 to 60 minutes
respectively. With regard to the number of children majority had 2- 3
children n = 798 (42.6%). Mothers having one child were 428(22.9%) and
out of those 64 (15%) initiated breast feeding within 30 – 60 minutes as
compared to 182 (22.8%) mothers having 2 – 3 children. Uneducated
mothers were 888(47.4%) and out of those 133 (15%) initiated breast
feeding within 30-60 minutes, 398 (44.8%) mothers continued exclusive
breast feeding for 3 -6 months and 170 (19.2%) mothers continued for
more than 2 years as compared to graduate mothers 114 (27.7%) who
initiated breastfeeding within 30 – 60 minutes, 78 (18.9%) mothers
continued exclusive breast feeding for 3 – 6 months and 42 (10.2%)
mothers continued feeding for more than 2 years. Over all irrespective
of age, number of children and educational status of mothers 617 (33%)
mothers continued exclusive breast feeding for 3 – 6 months, 1174
(62.7%) mothers were on demand feeding and 1237 (66.1%) mothers
continued breast feeding for 1 - 2 years.
Conclusion: The overall practices of the mothers regarding
breastfeeding belonging to any age group, number of children and
educational status is low, especially among mothers less than 20 years,
having a single child and uneducated.
Arshad Hamid Khan, Syed Zafar Mehdi, Prof. Jalal ud Din, Veena Kumari, JamilAkhtar. (2016) Effect of Age, Number of Children and Educational status of Mothers on Breastfeeding Practices, Pakistan Pediatric Journal, Volume 40, Issue 1.
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