Objectives
Complementary feeding of infants is an important step, both by nutritional changes it entails as it illustrates the maturation. This may explain the many prejudices and misconceptions that accompany it. The purpose of this study was to explore the knowledge, attitudes and practices of mothers and health professionals about somplementary feeding.
Methods
It âs a cross sectional study with prospective data collection, based on semi-structured individual interviews conducted from April 1st to November 30th 2013. The population of the study included the mothers of infants aged 0 to 24 months , primiparous or not, who attended the twelve health centers
Results
84.6% of these mothers did not receive any advice on food diversification which 58.1% are planned to begin diversifying at the age of 6 months and 93.0% received no information breastfeeding during the day and 75.8% of which gave the breast to the child each time he sought it, 97.4% have received no identification of breastfeeding problems in infants, 84.2% did not receive any necessary follow-up visit, and 97.8% had no idea about the frequency of breastfeeding during the night. For the category of children aged 6 to 24 months of age, 64.8% had complementary feeding at the age of 6 months (range 1 to 12 months), 74.6% had not received any advice on the conduct of dietary diversification and 89.8% have benefited from any of breastfeeding counseling
Conclusions
Many shortcomings in knowledge and behavior at the level of basic public health institution remain to be filled for the promotion of breastfeeding and the gradual start-up of diversification, particularly in the area of communication between mothers and health professionals.
