Knowledge and Attitude Evaluation of Mothers Regarding Exclusive Breastfeeding Referring to Health Care Centers

Background: Exclusive breastfeeding is the single most effective intervention for child survival. The purpose of the study was to assess knowledge, attitude of mothers about exclusive breastfeeding.

Materials and methods: Data has been collected by structured questionnaire and interview from Iranian mothers referring to Health Care Centers in Zabol. In a cross sectional study 268 women who had children less than two years selected via cluster random sampling technique.

Results: Mean age of mothers was 27.33 ± 6.13, 64.6% of children used breastfeeding and 39.5% of them had exclusive breastfeeding till 4 months after birth and 28% had exclusive breastfeeding till end of 6 months. 9.7% of the subjects had poor knowledge, 59.7% of them had a moderate awareness and 30.6% had a good knowledge about breastfeeding. Moreover 41.8% had a moderate attitude and 58.2% had a good attitude towards breastfeeding. According to Pearson correlation, no significant relationship was found between knowledge with attitude and age of mothersÒ† in the 1^st pregnancy, (P˃0.05), but there was a significant positive relationship with between knowledge and age (r = 0.28, PË‚0.05) and the time of initiating of supplementary food (r = 0.166, PË‚0.05). No significant relationship observed between attitude with knowledge and age, age of mothersÒ† in the 1^st pregnancy and the time of initiating of supplementary food (P˃0.05).

Conclusion: There is an urgent necessity to provide accurate prenatal education that focuses on methods and long-term benefits of infant feeding to mothers, family and health professionals.