EXCLUSIVE BREAST FEEDING

DURATION AT NORTHERN AREAS OF PAKISTAN; A HOSPITAL BASED STUDY

Abstract

Objective To study the duration and factors influencing exclusive breast feeding practice. Design: A cross sectional descriptive study Setting: A primary care hospital Gilgit, northern area of Pakistan. Period: Ten months from March 2007 to December 2007. Material & Method This study include 125 mothers with mean age of 24.3 years (SD 4.8),37% were illiterate while only 14% were matriculate or above among 125 babies (male 61%: female 39%). Results Out of total 125, eighty one (64.8%) babies were exclusively breast fed (EBF) for first six months of life and only five(4%) infants were not given breast milk at all . among 76 male infants ,52 (68.4%) were EBF for six months in comparison to 29 female (59.2%) out of 49. among 36 first born infants only 15 (41.7%) were EBF for six months in comparison to 66 (74.2%)out of 89 not first born(p<0.05). Conclusion: Exclusive breast feeding for complete 6 months is still not routinely practised by most of mothers and first born are deprived of this right in majority lower socioeconomic group and illiterate mothers are more likelyto breast feed, gender bias was also observed as a significantly high percentage of male babies were observed to be breast fed as compared to females. More efforts are required by health depart. And NGO’s to promote good breast feeding practices in our setup.