Awareness regarding feeding practices among mothers attending an immunization center: An institutional study

Introduction: Infant feeding practices include exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months added with timely and appropriate introduction of complementary feeding to children after around 6 completed months of age. This study was aimed to assess the awareness regarding feeding practices among mothers. Methodology: A crosssectional study was done at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, Ranchi, India on mothers visiting the immunization center selected by consecutive sampling. A pretested semistructured questionnaire was prepared and given to all the mothers. The sample size consisted of 103 mothers. Results: Most of the mothers (91.3%, n = 94) claimed to be aware regarding initiation of breastfeeding. Nearly 56% (n = 38) of mothers from urban locality and 61.1% (n = 22) mothers from rural locality believed that breastfeeding should be started within 30 minutes to 1 hour after a normal delivery; while 40% (n = 27) of mothers from urban locality and 47.2% (n = 17) mothers from rural locality knew that breastfeeding should be initiated after 4 hours of cesarean delivery (P = 0.025). Multivariable regression model demonstrated that mothers belonging to Hindu (OR 0.13; 95% CI, 0.03–0.52; P = 0.004) and Muslim (OR 0.12; 95% CI, 0.02–0.85; P = 0.034) religion were associated with lower odds for practicing bottle feeding as compared to mothers from other religions. Conclusion: There are differences in feeding practices among different locality, religion, and other demographic factors.