Infants' complementary food pattern and mothers' knowledge in rural areas in Rasht city
By: Panahandeh, Z, PhD. Dousdar Sanaye, M, MS.
Abstract
Introduction: Prompt start of complementary food and mothers' knowledge regarding it is very important for the child’s nutritional status.
Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess infants' pattern of complementary food and nutritional knowledge of mothers in rural areas in Rasht city.
Methods: In a cross-sectional study in summer of 2006, among a group of women who attended rural public health centers for infantile care in Rasht, we selected 269 women, by random multi-stage cluster sampling. Demographic data, introduction time and type of complementary food, knowledge and source of information were collected during interview and recorded in a questionnaire. Depending on knowledge scores, the knowledge was categorized in three levels: weak, intermediate and good. We used Fisher’s Exact and Chi-square tests for statistical analysis and p<0.05 as significant.
Results: In this study 91.8% of mothers had good nutritional knowledge. Rate of exclusive breast feeding was 93%. For more than 80% of children Fereni (combination of milk and rice powder) was the first complementary food at the beginning. About 93% of children were predominantly fed with homemade-food after the first year of their life and 33% ate less than 5 meals a day. Rate of breast milk weaning was 17% at the end of the first year. The first source of nutritional knowledge of mothers was local health centers.
Conclusion: Women in this study had appropriate knowledge and performed according to advised complementary food pattern. In attention to the important role of health centers in increasing mothers' knowledge level regarding complementary food, giving more attention to these centers is necessary.
Key words: Complementary nutrition, women, infancy, Child
Rights and permissions | |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |