Publication:

Effect of socio demographic profile on knowledge, attitude and practices of mothers regarding breastfeeding of Lucknow district

Background Breastfeeding is the ideal source of nutrition for first six month of life which is globally recognised. There are various advantages of optimal breastfeeding but still breastfeeding rates in Uttar Pradesh is only 56%. This might be attributed to various social, cultural and economical factors. Since there is limited local data on the knowledge, attitudes and practices of women toward breastfeeding. hence, we planned this study to assess knowledge, attitude and practices (KAP) of mothers regarding breastfeeding and influence of sociodemographic profile on them.

Methods A cross sectional study was conducted on 200 mothers coming to the rural and urban areas of a district with infants between 0-6 months. The data was collected using a predesigned questionnaire based on KAP about breastfeeding. The data was analyzed using (SPSS) version 21.0.

Results Our study shows that regarding knowledge of breastfeeding, in rural group 42% considered colustrum as first breast milk. In contrast in urban group, 63% were aware that it was first breast milk (p=0.003). Regarding practices, 56% of rural women had started breastfeeding within one hour while only 38% of urban women did the same (p=0.011). Regarding attitude, 77% women of urban area agreed regarding goodness of colostrum for health followed by 48% of rural women (p≤0.001). Most of the women agreed to the belief that a baby should burp after feeding (94% rural and 91% urban).

Conclusions The Gap between KAP regarding breastfeeding exists in rural and urban setups. So, proper stratgies should be planned depending on socio-demographic profile.