Do Mothers from Urban Area Optimally Breastfeed Their Babies as Compared to Mothers in Village? - A Cross-Sectional Community Survey in Vadodara District

摘要

Introduction: In India, despite numerous initiatives by government and private NGOs on breastfeeding, there has been poor improvement in rate of exclusive breastfeeding. Current study aimed to perform comparative analysis of rural and urban community’s perspectives on exclusive breastfeeding in Vadodara city Methods: Hundred mother-newborn babies’ pairs (n=50 from village and n=50 from town)were selected for this cross-sectional survey. Demographic information along with knowledge, attitude and practices’ details about exclusive breastfeeding was obtained. Differences in approaches were assessed using chi square and t-test for categorical and continuous variable respectively.P0.05 was considered to be criteria to prove statistical significance. Results: Almost half of the subjects (N=54) had incomplete knowledge about breastfeeding attachment and positioning. No significant differences in EBF practices were found in both rural and urban mothers. None of the mothers practiced use of top feed, artificial nipple like means for feeding their infants. Conclusion: Rural and Urban mothers had no difference in breast-feeding approaches with poor knowledge about breastfeeding at-tachment and positioning. Thus it could be recommended to have inclusive policy interventions for regarding awareness and strategic implementation on breastfeeding.