Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding and its determinants in first 6 months of life: A prospective study

antenatal visits, maternal employment, received advice on
exclusive breastfeeding during postnatal visits, inter delivery
interval [birth spacing], previous duration of exclusive
breastfeeding in multiparous) at second level, and at third
level, infants' characteristics (birth weight, initiation of
breastfeeding, any breastfeeding difficulties). The
frequencies of variables were calculated and bivariate
analysis was performed between individual exposure factors
and the outcome, between exposure factors and other
variables and between the outcome and other variables. For
all data analysis, cutoff for statistical significance was set at
p<0.05. For multivariate analysis all variables whose
associations with outcome had the p value <0.20 were
selected in order to study possible confounding factors.
Experimental research that is reported in the manuscript has
Table 1: Characteristics of mother and children

been performed with approval of ethical committee of the
Government Medical College, Rajkot (reference number was
not provided). Research carried out on humans is in
compliance with the Helsinki Declaration.

Results:

Nine out of ten participants were literate; 86% were aged
more than 20 years and 84% belonged to low socioeconomic
class. A little more than 2/5^th of study population (43%) was
primiparous and 86% had normal delivery. Majority of moth-
ers had attended more than 3 antenatal visits. One fifth of
the mothers delivered low birth weight (< 2500 grams) ba-
bies. As shown in table 1, deliveries among 86% of the study
population were conducted in hospital. Fourteen percent
mothers returned to usual work within 6 months of delivery.

	No.	%
Infants
Sex
Male	253	54.8
Female	209	45.2
Birth weight (gms)
> 2500	367	79.4
< 2500	95	20.6
Place of Birth
Hospital	399	86.4
Home	63	13.6
Maternal
Maternal age (years)
> 30	34	7.4
21-30	364	78.7
< 20	64	13.9
Education
Illiterate	44	9.5
Primary	122	26.5
Secondary & Higher Secondary	245	53.0
Graduation & More	51	11.0
Working status
Housewife	399	86.4
Working	63	13.6
Socio-economic status
Upper	15	3.2
Middle	61	13.2
Lower	386	83.6
Parity
Primiparous	195	42.2
Multiparous	267	57.8
Type of delivery
Normal	399	86.4
Caesarian	63	13.6

The breastfeeding initiation rate in this study was 100%. Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding at 3 months was 97% which was re-
duced to 62% at the end of 6 months of infant's age. The use of water, tea, juice etc was found in remaining study sample but solids
were not introduced in any infant.

OJHAS Vol 8 Issue 1(3) Chudasama RK, Amin CD, Parikh YN. Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding and its determinants in first 6 months of life

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