Assessment of knowledge attitude and practice in child feeding among mothers and caregivers of children aged 0-24 months in Kibiito Town Council, Bunyangabu District

Abstract

Introduction: Inappropriate child feeding remains one of the major causes of malnutrition and death in children below the age of two years despite efforts at global and National level. In Africa, the problem of malnutrition continues to persist. The UNICEF (2014) estimated that 60% of children under the age of two years are undernourished, Also the UDHS 2016 findings stated that 29% of Ugandan children aged 6-59 months were stunted i.e. Short for age. To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice in Child feeding of mothers and caretakers of children aged 0-24 months. Methodology; A Cross sectional study that used quantitative methods, a proportionate simple random sampling technique was used to collect data from 94 mothers and caretakers using questionnaires that were administered by face to face interviews. Data was then analyzed using Microsoft excel version. Results Mothers were reported to be the main decision makers in breastfeeding children and in deciding whether a child would be exclusively breastfed, i.e. for children below six months. Ensuring optimal CF was reported as the mother’s responsibility, while purchasing food for the child and making decisions on the type of food to be bought were reported as a father’s responsibility. Participants scored more than 80% on the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding for the child, but had lower knowledge scores (28.6% for males and 42.3 for females) on the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding for the mother. A total of 14.3% of the males and 11.5% of the females had the misconception that eating fresh cassava and soaked rice helped in increasing a mother’s breast milk supply. A high proportion of the participants (71.4% of males and 57.7% of females) did not know the benefits for the mother who is exclusively breastfeeding. Conclusion Make communities aware through nutrition education programmes on the nutritional needs recommended for feeding infants and young children, and breastfeeding mothers. Include fathers in nutrition education programmes on CF, so that they are aware of the type of food to purchase for the complementary fed children since they were reported as having the responsibility to purchase food for the children. Develop interventions that improve parents’ and caregivers’ access and affordability to food like subsidy programmes for infant and young child foods. Develop interventions that promote diversified food production and the use of enriched cereal production for improved CF.