Abstract :
A cross sectional study on 250 pre-school children (2-5years) along with their mothers was undertaken among Girwah tehsil of Udaipur city. The study aimed to assess the prevailing infant feeding practices and immunization status. Information related to infant feeding was gathered by interviewing mothers of pre-schoolers with the help of structured questionnaire. Results revealed that large amount of subjects (40.8%) received prelacteal feed. Janam gutti was most common used prelacteal feed. Breast feed was received by 100 per cent subjects and most of the mothers (54.4%) feed their children on demand. 49.2 per cent mothers initiated breast feed within 1 hour after the birth of their child, remaining 29.6 and 21.2 per cent feed after 2-5 hours and more than 5 hours. Colostrum was not known by 5.6 per cent mothers and they dint even feed it to their newborns. Exclusive breast feed was given by 70 per cent mothers. Duration of exclusive breast feed was 3-6 months among most of the mothers (43.6%). 4.8 per cent mothers exclusively breast feed their children more than 8 months. Most of the mothers (94.8 %) breast feed during their illness. The most common age of weaning was found 4-6 months, among them 69.2 per cent preferred homemade weaning food. Most common age of giving semi solid/solid food was 6-8 months (40%) and 8-10 months (22%), while 5.2 per cent mothers didn’t start weaning their infants even after the age of more than 12 months. Immunization status of 84 per cent children was found satisfactory, while 4.4 per cent children were partially immunized and 1.6 per cent didn’t even have immunization card.
Keyword :
Infant feeding, Practices, Preschool children, Immunization, Malnutrition