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2023 Faculty of Clinical Medicine and Dentistry IAA Journal of Scientific Research

Factors Influencing Breastfeeding Practices Among Postnatal Mothers in Hoima Regional Refferal Hospital

Nakitende Mary

This study assessed the prevalence of breastfeeding practices, maternal and child factorsinfluencing exclusive breastfeeding among lactating mothers attending Hoima regionalreferral hospital. A descriptive cross-sectional study design which employed bothquantitative and qualitative methods in data collection was used for this study. Simplerandom sampling technique was used to sample the health facilities and respondents(lactating mothers) at each facility. 200 lactating mothers of children of age 0- 24 monthsparticipated in this study. Data from the survey was statistically analyzed using theStatistical Package for Social Sciences. According to the present study, the overallprevalence of exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months was 68.33%,Predominantbreastfeeding in the first six months was 12.5%,bottle feeding was 58.5% among children 0-24months.Early initiation of breastfeeding among infants 0- 11months was 95.8% and 95.0%among those aged 12-24months.Among mothers with children aged 0-11months 95.83%initiated their newborns to breastfeeding within the first hour while 95.00% with children12-24months initiated within the first hour. Among mothers with children 0-1months,85.71% practiced exclusive breastfeeding and 14.29% practiced predominantbreastfeeding. Exclusive breast feeding and predominant breastfeeding were at 70.83% and29.17% respectively among mothers with children aged 2-3months.Among children aged 4-5months,57.14% and 42.86% were predominantly and exclusively breastfed respectively.Bottle feeding was at 73.75% among children aged 12-24months, 61.11% among those aged6- 11months and 37.14% among those 0-5months.Exclusive breastfeeding was highestamong mothers aged 18-29(64.29%), married (68.65%), mothers who attained postsecondaryeducation (85.71%), House wives (76.19%), urban dwellers (76.00%), motherswho attended antenatal care. More than 4 times (77.50%), multiparous (71.05) and motherswho produced from hospital (66.67%). Exclusive breastfeeding was high among childrenaged 0- 1months (85.71%), male infants (66.67%), infants who had birth weight >2.5kg(67.70%) and those with high appetite (69.70%) as shown in table 3 below. Exclusivebreastfeeding in Uganda is satisfactory though still short of the WHO target. Maternal factorsassociated with exclusive breastfeeding include; Age, marital status, Level of education,occupation, area of residence, antenatal care visits, parity and place of delivery while child’sfactors associated with exclusive breastfeeding include child’s age, gender, birth weight andchild’s appetite.