Breast feeding practices in children with sepsis admitted in intensive care.

Abstract

Objectives: The objective was to study breast feeding practices in children with sepsis admitted in intensive care unit of Children Hospital, Lahore. Study Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study. Setting: Medical Intensive Care Unit of The Children Hospital and Institute of Child Health Lahore. Period: From June 2018 to December 2018. Material & Methods: Considering 95% confidence level, 7.5% margin of error and the expected percentage of bottle feeding children i.e. 27% (least among both) feeding types in children with sepsis admitted in ICU, a sample size of 140 children was taken. All the patients from 6 month to 2 years of age and either gender admitted in medical ICU with sepsis were included in the study through non-probability consecutive sampling. After taking an informed written consent from caregiver, a preformed and pre-tested questionnaire was used for data collection. Diagnosis of sepsis as based upon the criteria for SIRS. Exclusively breastfed children for first 6 months of life were classified as ‘breastfed’. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 22 and Chi-square test. P value < 0.05 was taken as significant. Results: Total 140 children were included in the study with the mean age of 14.64 ± 5.26 months. In this study, 47 (33.57%) children were found breast fed while 93 (66.43%) children were not breast fed as per history. Conclusion: The study concluded that breast feeding practice is uncommon in children admitted in intensive care unit with sepsis and breastfeeding was found to be significantly associated with maternal education and gender of the child.