Knowledge and practices of mothers on complementary feeding in Male’: Maldives

Abstract

Adequate nutrition during the infancy and early childhood (first 2 years of a child) is essential to ensure the growth, development and overall health of children to their full potential. Complementary feeding is the process starting when breast milk alone or infant formula alone is no longer sufficient to meet the nutritional requirements of infants, and therefore other food and liquids are needed, along with breast milk or a breast-milk substitute. This study aimed to identify the practices and examine the knowledge of mothers of 6 to 24 months children in Male’ regarding complementary feeding and the factors that influence it. The study consisted of interviewing 90 participants who are mothers of children of 6 to 24 months of age registered at “Dhamana Veshi” using a semi-structured questionnaire. The study revealed that a high percentage of the mothers were aware of the appropriate duration of exclusive breastfeeding (93%) and complementary feeding (96%). However, only 58% of the mothers correctly practiced exclusive breastfeeding and 63% initiated complementary feeding at the recommended time. Hence there was a large gap between the knowledge of mothers and actual practice which was influenced by a number of factors. Socioeconomic factors that significantly affected both the level of knowledge and practices include the type of family, education level of the mother and number of children in the family. Factors such as lactation failure and working mothers largely contributed to early initiation of complementary feeding. Flexible working hours, increased guidance and support by the health care providers and better methods of information dissemination needs to be established to improve the current situation.