ABSTRACT

Appropriate breast feeding and complementary feeding practices and access to adequate amounts of appropriate foods are essential for optimal infant nutrition. Therefore, this cross sectional study was aimed to assess infant and young child feeding practices of caregivers and anthropometric status of children aged (6-24) months in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State. A structured questionnaire was used to obtain information on socio-economic characteristics as well as knowledge and practices of the caregivers on breastfeeding and complementary feeding. Anthropometric status of the children was calculated using WHO anthro. Data obtained were presented using descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages. From the result, some (64.5%) of caregivers completed their secondary school education; 47% were trades and 47.9% earned less than 18,OOO monthly. More than half (52.9%) had good knowledge of breastfeeding/complementary feeding. 55.6% introduced complementary foods when the babies were between 4-5 months. Immediately after the introduction of family food to the children, 56.8% of the care givers stopped breastfeeding their babies from 6-12 months. Only 33.2% gave their babies breast milk immediately after birth, very few (7.3%) of the caregivers feed their babies with only breast milk for 6 months. Prevalence of wasting, stunting and underweight was 1.5%, 13.1% and 4.6% of the children respectively. No significant relationship was found between knowledge of the caregivers towards complementary feeding and nutritional status of the children. Therefore, emphases should be based on improving the breastfeeding/complementary feeding practices adopted by these caregivers which could help to reduce the number of children at risk based on their length-for-age. The findings of the study concluded that the prevalence of malnutrition based on wasting and underweight were low, the rate of stunting was slightly high among the children, majority of the caregivers had good complementary feeding knowledge although a good number were not aware that children should be given greater portion of meat, the caregivers exhibited poor practice going by poor initiation of breast milk containing colostrum exhibited by most of them and their introduction of complementary foods before a child is 6 months old. The study recommended that emphasis should be based on improving the breastfeeding practices adopted by these caregivers who could