Attitudes and practices on breastfeeding among mothers seeking medical care at Mandera district hospital, Mandera district, North Eastern Kenya

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Date
2014-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kampala International University, School of Health Sciences
Abstract
Exclusive breastfeeding is defined as the practice of giving a child milk and milk alone without any food supplement for the first six months of life. Though there has been an adequate intervention to scale up exclusive breastfeeding, there still remains a big gap to overcome in the adaptation of exclusive breast feeding including cultural barriers, knowledge gaps and attitudes. A cross sectional retrospective study was conducted at Mandera Hospital, Kenya to determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices of mothers in exclusive breastfeeding between January 2014 and June 2014.This study found out that majority of mothers (75%) have heard and have and up to date knowledge about exclusive breastfeeding, 25% started breastfeeding within a day and 11.84% said they started breastfeeding after a day of delivering. This study also found out that 38(43.68%) of the mothers believed that exclusive breastfeeding is inadequate, and 19(21.84%) says that exclusive breastfeeding makes a child feels hungry. Breastfeeding is highly practices among mothers attending Mandera hospital, though many mothers have limited knowledge on the importance of exclusive breastfeeding to the baby. And finally recommended that government should adapt local polices to control barriers to breastfeeding especially among working mothers, Health sector should provide education to mothers on the value of breastfeeding and the importance of breastfeeding for a longer period of time and that mother peer to peer groups should be established within the communities to provide ongoing support to other mothers at community levels.
Description
A research report submitted in partial fulfillment of the award of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery of Kampala International University
Keywords
Breastfeeding, Attitudes and practices on breastfeeding, Medical Care, Mandera district, North Eastern Kenya
Citation