Breastfeeding Practices among Infants and Young Children Less Than Two Years of Age in East-Central Ethiopia: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction: Globally 60% of the infant and young child death occurs due to the inappropriate infants feeding practices and infectious diseases from which two-thirds of the deaths are attributable to sub-optimal breastfeeding practices. In Ethiopia, sub-optimal breastfeeding was annually contributed to 70,000 infant mortalities. Therefore, the current study aimed to assess breastfeeding practices among children aged 0-23 months. Methods: Community-based cross-sectional study was conducted from July 18-31, 2017. A systematic random sampling technique was used to select mothers (n=421) with index age child. Data was collected on socio-demographic characteristics and breastfeeding practices through face to face interview using World Health Organization’s breastfeeding assessment criteria. The collected data were entered into and analyzed by statistical software SPSS version 20 and tested for significance at 0.05. Finally, results were presented using tables and figures. Results: The study depicted all participant infants have ever breastfed at some point in their life. The proportions of infants and young children who put on the breast early and fed colostrum were 58.4% and 52.4% in respective order while the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding practice reported 57%. Complementary food was introduced at exactly 6 months for 34.5% of infants. The higher proportions of young children were continued breastfeeding at the age of 1year (87%) and 2 years (62.5%). Similarly, about sixty-eight (68.2%) of infants were fed breast ≥ 8 times in 24 hours. On the other hand, 41.8% of mothers practiced bottle feeding and 76.7% reduced child feeding frequency when their child got ill. Finally, early initiation of breastfeeding(X2=5.9, P=0.01) and bottle feeding (X2=3.7, P=0.03) were demonstrated significance with child sex. Conclusion: Breastfeeding practice is relatively not at the better rim among the current study community. Therefore, the scaling up of breastfeeding practice should be the imminent assignment for service providing health facilities in the area. Further, it is missive to local government to form a coalition with breastfeeding partners and community to improve optimal breastfeeding practices.