Feeding Practices of under two years children in Darai Community of Chitwan District

Abstract

Abstract: It is mandatory for Bachelor of public health. Student to do research in particular interested topic, in the partial fulfillment of the Bachelor degree of public health. So for the fulfillment of Bachelor degree I had conducted research entitled ”Feeding practicesof under two years children in Darai community of Chainpur and Kathar VDCs of Chitwan.Nepal is one of the developing Countries in the South Asia. Early childhood is veryimportant and the crucial period for the proper physical, mental and emotional development. Therefore the child should be looked especially at this period .in Nepal, child below two years are suffering from malnutrition the most.An improper feeding practice among young children particularly 6-23 months is a major cause of malnutrition. Thus, the present study has been focused on feeding practices of fewer than two years children. The study was quantitative study. Main objective of the study was to know the feeding practices of under two years children in Darai community of Chainpur and Kathar VDCs of Chitwan.Questions were related to the Breastfeeding practices, Complimentary feeding practices, feeding during Diarrhea and Pneumonia.Altogether 98 mothers were taken for the study. The structured questionnaire was developed, pretested and used to collect the information. After the collection of data, it was analyzed by using EPI-INFO 2002 version. Also, the data was presented in different tables to make it more clear and specific. Among 98 of the respondent 18.37% of the mothers had child below 7 months and 81.63% of the respondent had child below 7-23 months. Majority of the respondent were aged between21-25 years. Mean age of the mother is 23.8.All were Darai 92.86% respondent were educated, among them only 2.04% had higher education. Some of the respondents were pregnant before the age 20 years.68.37% respondent had first Breastfed their child with in 1 hour of birth. Almost 95.92% did not give prelacteal feed to their children. Colostrum feeding was seen good i.e.95.92% of the respondent had feed their child. Current breastfeeding practice is seen good which was96.94%.exclusive breastfeeding practice was very good which results the positive health of child. About 89.8% of the respondent had started giving complementary food in correct time. Almost all respondent give sarbottam pitho and later on family food as complimentary.69.39% of the respondent had heard about sarbottam pitho; among them 69.4% have correct knowledge of preparation of sarbo ttam pitho. Regarding question related to diarrhea 46.93% had suffered from it. Among them83.7% had correct method of preparation of ORS.60.2% the respondent had Breastfed during Diarrhea, 68.37% use fluid, 70.4% use food during diarrhea. Regarding question related to Pneumonia 68.37% had knowledge about at least two symptoms of pneumonia.2.04% respondent went Dhami/Jhankri for treatment of Pneumonia.