Factors associated with suboptimal complementary feeding practices among mothers of infants and young children in India.

Objectives: To examine the current complementary feeding practices among infants and young children aged 6 to 23 months in India, and factors influencing these practices at child, parental, household and community levels.

Material and methods: Data on 74,095 last-born children aged 6 to 23 months used in this study were obtained from the 2015 India Demographic and Health Survey (IDHS). Complementary feeding indicators (timely introduction of complementary foods to infants aged 6 to 8 months old, minimum meal frequency, minimum dietary diversity, and minimum acceptable diets) were estimated, and their associated factors were identified using descriptive and multivariate (logistic regression) analyses.

Results: The prevalence of the timely introduction of complementary foods to infants aged 6 to 8 months was 45.1%. The proportion of children between ages 6 to 23 months who received the minimum meal frequency, minimum dietary diversity and minimum acceptable diets were 36%, 21% and 9.1%, respectively. Findings from the multivariate analyses revealed that mothers of infants delivered at home, mothers who had no antenatal check-up, mothers who are Hindus, mothers living in rural areas or those from the Western/Northern geographical regions of India were at higher risk of suboptimal complementary feeding practices.

Conclusions. Our findings indicate that, among other factors, achieving the recommended four or more antenatal visits was consistently associated with improved complementary feeding practices. Thus, policies that ensure increased coverage and quality of antenatal check-up could improve complementary feeding practices of mothers in India, and help towards achieving sustainable development goal 2, targeted at eradicating hunger and malnutrition.