Publications

According to the WHO, breast milk has many benefits to the infant as it is a main source ofenergy and nutrients required by infants in the first 6 months of life for good health anddevelopment. The study was a simple random sampling technique and was deployed toobtain a sample of breastfeeding mothers, and was done by assigning them numbers andselecting only those with a value that is a prime number. This was done every Tuesday andFriday for one month as these were the days assigned for immunization and post-natalservices. In this study, it was found that the prevalence of EBF among lactating mothers withinfants aged 0–6 months attending Kotido General Hospital was low (36.2%). The majority ofothers that practiced EBF were those between 18-25 (46%), those that were married alsopractised more than the single and divorced, 64.5%. the majority of the mothers who hadsecondary education practised EBF more than the uneducated and those with primaryeducation and the self-employed mothers did practice EBF more than the employed and thepeasant mothers. The majority of mothers 95/138 (95%) had a vaginal delivery, compared tothose who were done caesarian section, 43/138 (31.2%). A few of the mothers were HIVpositive 18/138 (13%) and the majority were negative 120/138 (87%). Multipara mothers weremore of the participants 115/138 (83.3%) compared to the nullipara 23/138 (16.7) and mostof the mothers did not attend antenatal care clinic 93/138 (67.4%), while those who attendedwere only 45/138 (32.6%). Mothers coming for delivery should be encouraged on theimportance of attending antenatal care whenever they realize they are pregnant so that theycan be given information on the benefits of EBF. People employing lactating mothers shouldbe informed and advised to allow these mothers to breastfeed their children whenever needbe.