Introduction: Breastfeeding is a gift of nature, which is a vital intervention, having impact on the child survival.Knowledge of breastfeeding and support for breastfeeding influence the rate of EBF practice, which in turn determines IMR.Therefore this study aimed to assess the knowledge and support for breastfeeding practice among postnatal mothers in a tertiary care hospital, Vellore, Tamilnadu.Methods and Materials: It is a cross sectional questionnaire based study, done from Nov 2016 to April 2017 among the postnatal mothers who had babies less than 28 days in OBG department, Government Medical College & Hospital, Vellore, Tamilnadu.Results: In this study, we found that educated mothers tend to gain more support from the family members than, less educated/illiterate mothers.Thus educational status of mother is, significantly associated with initiation, duration of exclusive breast EBF and support from family members.Young age mothers are well supported by the family for breastfeeding practices.Housewives are well supported than employed mothers.All are statistically significant with P value of less than 0.001.Conclusion: Though the knowledge about breast feeding is up to the mark, there is a wide gap between knowledge of breastfeeding and ideal practice of breastfeeding.Hence, for increasing EBF rate and reducing the IMR and Under 5 mortality, we are in a position to establish strong support groups, and IEC activities targeting them and encouraging them to support their nursing mothers.
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Dr D.M. Deenadayalan (2017) studied this question.