Background: Breast-feeding practices play an important role in reducing the child mortality and morbidity. This study describes the breast-feeding practices in Bikaner, Rajasthan, India.
Objective: To study the breast-feeding practices and factors affecting initiation and duration of breast-feeding.
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at the immunization center of Sardar Patel Medical College, Bikaner, Rajasthan from June 2015 to October 2015 for the period of 4 months. Mothers who came to the immunization center for vaccination with infants aged less than 1 year were included in the study. A total of 600 mothers were included in this study.
Result: Our study showed that most of the mothers initiated breast-feeding (98%) and the others (2%) were not able to initiate and only 38% of the mothers did the exclusive breast-feeding until 6 months and started weaning after 6 months. A total of 57% of mothers in our study prematurely started weaning.
Conclusion: This study emphasizes the need for breast-feeding intervention programs especially for the mothers during their antenatal and postnatal checkups. The information regarding the advantage and duration of breast-feeding needs to be provided for the community as a whole.
Key words: Breast-feeding, weaning, infants, mothers, immunization
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