Evaluation of cultural and maternal practices about exclusive breastfeeding among mothers with children aged 0 – 6 months in kiamabundu location Kisii County, Kenya
International Journal of Development Research
Evaluation of cultural and maternal practices about exclusive breastfeeding among mothers with children aged 0 – 6 months in kiamabundu location Kisii County, Kenya
Received 17th December, 2019; Received in revised form 26th January, 2020; Accepted 10th February, 2020; Published online 31st March, 2020
Copyright © 2020, Edicah Kemunto Barake et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) is recommended for healthlygrowth and development of children. It has been widely demonstrated that breastfeeding reduces risk to several infections and non-comunicable diseases. As a result the WHO recommend exclusive breastfeeding for up to 6 months but it is poorly understood how cultural and maternal practices influence the exclusive breastfeeding. This study assessed how the cultural and maternal practices influence of exclusive breastfeeding among mothers with children aged 0 – 6 months in Kiamabundu Location Kisii County. The study participants were randomlysampled. The study used quantitative approach to collect data. The data collection tools was a structured questionnaire questionnaire. Chi-square was used to test for the relationship between exclusive breastfeeding and other variables. The study shows that only 33% were practicing exclusive breastfeeding. In addition, the study shows that allowing the expression of breast milk as a cultural practice has influence on exclusive breastfeeding (P value = 0.059). Also, knowledge on exclusive breastfeeding has influence on exclusive breastfeeding (P value = 0.024). In conclusion, cultural, and maternal practices have influence on exclusive breastfeeding. The study not only recommends more health education on exclusive breast feeding but also suggest more studies on other practices such as psychological, physiological etc.
