Mothers’ Feeding Practice and Nutritional Status of Infants in Selected Primary Health Care Center of Paikoro Local Government Area, Niger State, Nigeria

Background: Ensuring good health, growth and development of children requires adequate nutrition during infancy and early childhood. Therefore, optimal feeding during the first few years of life provides opportunity for prevention of growth faltering and under-nutrition. Hence, improvement of infant feeding practices for children less than five years should be a high priority globally. Objectives: The objective of this study is to assess the feeding practices of mothers and the nutritional status of infants and young children in some selected Primary Health Care (PHCs) in Paikoro LGA of Niger state, Nigeria Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in some selected Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in Paikoro area of Niger state and a total of 200 mother/child pair were selected using simple random sampling method. Data was collected from mothers using a pre- tested structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) (Version 20.0). Tests were statistically significant at p ≤ 0.05. Results: Majority (of the respondents feed colostrums to their babies. The prevalence of initiation of breastfeeding (78.5%), colostrum consumption (97.5%) and timely introduction of complementary feeding (74.5%) practices were high. The results further revealed 34.0% of the respondents breastfeed on demand while 29.5% were using feeding bottles. Conclusion: The study shows that a very high percentage of the mothers feed colostrums to their children but none breastfed their children to 24 months of age.