Kap Study of Exclusive Breast Feeding Among the Poor Population - An Institutional Based Study

Objective: to assess the practices and analyze the perceptions of mothers of poor population regarding exclusive breast feeding. methodology: it is a descriptive institutional based study. five-hundred women were enrolled at maternal and child health (mch) center,civil hospital karachi (chk) through systematic sampling during january to august 2007. questionnaire was used for data collection and interview was conducted. data were analyzed through spss version 11.5. continuous variables were categorized into different categories and proportions of all categorical variables were calculated. results: it was observed that only 34% women were practicing exclusive breast feeding. awareness regarding exclusive breast feeding was 88%. the use of prelacteal feeds like honey,ghutti was about 56.4% irrespective of age,education,area of residence and income level,due to various religious believes and family norms. water was given by 65.5% mothers along with breast milk whereas 53.6% mothers try to improve their diet to enhance milk production. difficulty in breast feeding was observed in 59.2%. the most common difficulty that mothers find in exclusive breast feeding was that the baby seems unsatisfied (36.8%). conclusion: although breast feeding practices are not common in population studied but awareness regarding exclusive breast feeding was found in majority of women. the use of prelacteal feeds like honey,ghutti is very common. most common problem in exclusive breast feeding was that the baby seems unsatisfied.