Mother's Knowledge on Nutritional Requirement of Infant and Young Child Feeding in Mekelle, Ethiopia, Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Nutrition is important part of child growth and development. Malnutrition still takes the lead in child mortality and morbidity. As Millennium Development Goal indicators no 1 and 4 is to reduce child mortality and improve nutrition respectively. A lot of children in this area have malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies. That's why this research is motivated to assess mother's knowledge on infant and young child feeding and micronutrient. Objective: This study is mainly aimed at assessing mother's knowledge on Infant and young child feeding which is a child feeding indicator developed by the World health organization. The study also assesses the mother's knowledge on micronutrient. Method: The study was conducted in Mekelle in two of its sub cities Kedamy Weyane and Ayder subcities. This cross-sectional study involves 541 mothers and multistage sampling design was used. Result: The results revealed that average mean of mothers knowledge on vitamin A were .95 which is moderately knowledgeable and the knowledge average mean for mother's knowledge on Iodine were 1.02, and 0.7 for iron mothers average mean knowledge for breast feeding were 1.34, 1.22 for knowledge of the mother on food diversity. Knowledge on minimum food frequency the mother's average mean score were 0.85. There is also a mean knowledge difference among the monthly income and mother's educational level. Conclusion and recommendation: Over all mothers had a moderate and slight knowledge on infant and young child feeding. Knowledge increases in parallel with educational and income level. Better knowledge enhancement is recommended by involving the mass media and the health care profession.