Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices and it’s determinants in flood-affected communities in Edo State, Nigeria
1 Department of Microbiology, Federal University Wukari, Taraba State, Nigeria.
2 Primary Health Care Initiative Africa, Kaduna State, Nigeria.
3 Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Research Article
International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Updates, 2023, 05(01), 007–013.
Article DOI: 10.53430/ijmru.2023.5.1.0051
Publication history:
Received on 15 December 2022; revised on 29 January 2023; accepted on 31 January 2023
Abstract:
The immediate effect of child malnutrition in Africa is morbidity. In the longer term, it limits the child’s potential for life even when the child manages to survive its instantaneous effects. This cross-sectional study focused on investigating the socio-demographic determinants of the components of Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) in flood-affected Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Edo State, Nigeria. A total of 400 mothers were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Results from this current study indicate that only about 48% of mothers surveyed exclusively breastfed theirs under 5 children. Also, only about 55% of mothers initiated breastfeeding within 1 hour of birth and gave colostrum, and about 45% of the mothers actually adhered strictly to the prescribed complementary feeding practice of giving nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods alongside breastfeeding at six months up till 2 years of age and even beyond. Education, source of income, marital status, and access to healthcare facilities were strong influencers of misconceptions and other factors impeding the implementation of the core components of IYCF as observed in this study. Flood remains a significant contributing factor depleting household food security structures leading to maternal and infant malnutrition. A concerted governmental coordinated intervention is required to relieve flood-affected families of the burden of malnutrition and infectious diseases. Training and retraining of health workers will be helpful in strengthening community involvement in implementing and monitoring IYCF components in the community. Longer maternity leave for nursing mothers should be strongly advocated for.
Keywords:
Breastfeeding; Complementary feeding; Edo State; Infant Young Child Feeding (IYCF); Malnutrition
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Copyright © 2023 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0