Knowledge Attitude and Practice of optimal breast feeding practices among mothers visiting two public health centres in Addis Ababa

Abstract

ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION: Human breast milk is the best and cost-effective infant nutrition available. Optimal breast feeding ensures a health benefit to both mother and infant. Assessing the knowledge, attitude and practice of optimal breast feeding helps to identify gaps and suggest possible interventions for policy makers OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of optimal breast feeding of mothers attending public health enters in Adiss Ababa METHODOLOGY: Institution based cross sectional study was conducted among mothers visiting selected health centres from May 2023 to October 2023.The data obtained was cleaned and entered in to a computer and statistical analysis was performed using SPPS version 26.0 for windows. Descriptive analysis was used to describe the percentages and number distributions of the variables in the study. RESULT ; Total of 344 mothers were interviewed ,100% know that breast milk is the first food of newborns .Breast feeding should be initiated immediately according to 92% of mothers.70% of mothers know about breast milk expression and storage. All agree infants have to be exclusively breastfed for 6 month and 92% disagree that colustrum should be discarded .Regarding practice; EBF was practiced by 59.5% of mothers and 86% continued breast feeding after the age of 6 month. CONCLUSION; The results of this research showed that knowledge ,Attitude and optimal breast feeding practices have shown improvement compared to previous researchs done in this area. Despite this, gap still exist as optimal breast feeding practices helps achieve SDG goals set by WHO. Additional emphasis should be given in regard to teaching mothers on optimal breast feeding practice at different health facilities Keywords: Breast feeding, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice and infant mortality