Social Rituals and Infant Feeding Practices in Dhangar Tribe of Maharashtra: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

The social rituals and infant feeding practices offer both opportunities and barriers to infant’s health. But infant feeding remains poor in a vulnerable population such as tribe because of their unique culture. The social rituals following the birth of an infant are explored in addition to practices of infant feeding in Dhangar tribe of Maharashtra in India. Seventeen mothers of 6-12 months old infant were interviewed in an in-depth interview, while 44 grandmothers were interviewed in seven focus group discussions. The thematic analysis of narratives emerged specific and distinct themes. The results revealed that the tribe follows prominent social rituals after the birth of an infant, the mother initiated late breastfeeding, fed prelacteals and neglected exclusive breastfeeding. However, they observed taboos on mother’s diet, but they offered colostrum and breastfed the infant during her sickness. Thus, the tribe follows their unique social rituals on the birth of an infant and continues with the slow change in infant feeding practices. Address for correspondence: Mr. Arvind Santu Jadhav PhD Scholar, BSc, MSW, MPS, MPhil (IIPS) International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai, Govandi Station Road, Govandi, Mumbai 400 088, Maharashtra, India Mobile: 91+9699020648 E-mail: arvina27@gmail.com INTRODUCTION In any social group or community, the infant care and social rituals apply to both the infant and its mother. In fact, infant feeding remain poor because mother’s low age, illiteracy, unemployment and low-income family (Khan et al. 2017), in developing countries fail to support it. Again, social rituals direct the infant care and feeding practices. The mother’s awareness and effective feeding practices, especially for vulnerable mothers like those in the tribes residing in rural areas, would initiate late breastfeeding (Exavery et al. 2015). And hence the understanding of family’s support and therein advice to a lactating mother would be essential to know infant feeding and social rituals (Abel et al. 2001). In marginalised population (tribal, rural, or slum), infant feeding practices such as giving colostrum (Swetha et al. 2014), breastfeeding exclusively (Adugna et al. 2017; Velusamy et al. 2017), and adequate diet for lactating mothers (Kulakac et al. 2007) are established to be low. On the other hand, support of family and community members facilitate timely initiation of breastfeeding and continuation (Horii et al. 2017), which initiates from inherent social rituals and practices associated with infant care. This paper is, thus, the qualitative exploration into social rituals and infant feeding practices on a tribe that can provide valuable information to local healthcare. The investigation will facilitate the improved health of a mother and her infant. Again, this understanding would make advancing among mothers to aware about health systems knowledge to ensure better care, support, and diet for them and infant. Therefore, this study was designed to answer two specific objectives.