Attitudes And Practices On Breastfeeding Among Mothers Seeking Medical Care At Mandera District Hospital, Mandera District, North Eastern Kenya

Abstract

Exclusive breastfeeding is defined as the practice of giving a child milk and milk

alone without any food supplement for the first six months of life. Though there has

been an adequate intervention to scale up exclusive breastfeeding, there still

remains a big gap to overcome in the adaptation of exclusive breastfeeding

including cultural barriers, knowledge gaps and attitudes.

A cross sectional retrospective study was conducted at Mandera Hospital, Kenya to

determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices of mothers in exclusive

breastfeeding between January 2014 and June 2014.

This study found out that majority of mothers (75%) have heard and have and up to

date knowledge about exclusive breastfeeding, 25% started breastfeeding within a

day and 11.84% said they started breastfeeding after a day of delivering. This study

also found out that 38(43.68%) of the mothers believed that exclusive breastfeeding

is inadequate, and 19(21.84%) says that exclusive breastfeeding makes a child feels

hungry.

Breastfeeding is highly practices among mothers attending Mandera hospital,

though many mothers have limited knowledge on the importance of exclusive

breastfeeding to the baby.

And finally recommended that government should adapt local polices to control

barriers to breastfeeding especially among working mothers, Health sector should

provide education to mothers on the value of breastfeeding and the importance of

breastfeeding for a longer period of time and that mother peer to peer groups should

be established within the communities to provide ongoing support to other mothers

at community levels.