ABSTRACT

This study assessed the influence of complementary feeding pattern and psychosocial stimulation on the anthropometric status of children aged 6-24 months in Umuahia North Local Government area of Abia state. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select a total of 110 mothers and caregivers. Structured and validated questionnaire was used to elicit information from the mothers and caregivers on their socio-demographic/economic characteristics, psychosocial stimulation and gross motor milestone of the children. Anthropometric status of the children was determined using standard methods. WHO infant and young child feeding recommendations were used to categorize the complementary feeding status ofthe children, WHO anthro software was used to determine the anthropometric status of the children and IBM SPSS software (version 23) was used to analyse the data. The results revealed that over half (60%) of the mothers were between 26-35years old. Majority (89.1%) were married and half(50%) ofthe mothers earned below the N3 0,000 minimum wage. More than half (60%) of the infants were given breast milk within the first one hour of birth and (39.1%) were still breast feeding. Most (54.6%) of the infants received complementary foods before 6months, some (44.5%) received complementary foods at 6-7months and only few (0.9%) did not receive complementary food until they were 8months old. Majority (68.2%) met the minimum dietary diversity criteria. Overall complementary feeding practices was poor and only 3.6% met all the WHO recommendations for appropriate complementary feeding. More than half (57.3%) of the children attained satisfactory psychosocial stimulation score. All (100%) of the children aged 7months, met ‘the sitting without support’ gross motor milestone, only (44.4%) attained standing without support at 8 months and few (20%) ofthe children aged 12 months attained ‘walking alone’ at the appropriate time. The prevalence of wasting overweight, stunting and underweight among the children was 7.3%, 3.6%. 25.4% and 10% respectively. There was a positive significant relationship between complementary feeding and psychosocial stimulation (p

<0.05).Result from this study did not show any statistically significant association between attained milestone and appropriate complementary feeding. There was also no significant relationship between anthropometric status and psychosocial stimulation. Increased focus is required through nutrition education on promoting continuous breast feeding, appropriate complementary feeding practices and improved child care and stimulation.>