ABSTRACT

Malnutrition in infants during weaning has been attributed to inappropriate complementary feeding practice and it underlies more than one third of child mortality in Nigeria. Globally, it is estimated that under nutrition is directly and indirectly responsible for at least 45% of death in children less than five years of age. The immediate causes of malnutrition in the first two years of life are inappropriate brcastf ceding and complementary feeding practices, coupled with high rates of infections. Thus, this study was carried out to determine the complementary feeding practices and their anthropometric status in selected rural communities in Ekwusigo and Nnewi North Local Government Area of Anambra state. A cross sectional study design was used. Data were collected by using pre-tested questionnaires. A total of 250 mothers and their children were included in the study and purposive and simple random sampling technique was used. Descriptive statistics such as mean, frequency and standard deviation was used to analyze data on socio economics variables. complementary feeding practices, knowledge and attitude of the mothers towards complementary feeding Practices. The result obtained in this research showed that majority (78.4%) of the mothers are married and lives with husband. Most of the respondent arc Igbos (98.5%) and Christian (99.6%) and majority (61.2%) had completed their senior secondly school education. The occupations of the respondents were majorly (26.8%) farming and many (51.2%) earned less than 18,500. Majority (74.8%) of the mothers introduce breastfeeding within 30 minutes after birth and only (20.4%) gave only breast milk for the first six months. A few of the mothers (26.8%) introduce semi solid food at six months while (62.4%) of them introduce it below six months. The weight-for-age of the children reveals that (86.25%) of the children had normal weight, ( 10.8%) were underweight while very few were (3.0%) were wasted. Also the height-for-age status reveals that (80.2%) of the children had normal height for age, (11.65%) were stunted while (8.15%) were severely stunted. The BM I-for-age reveals that (30.2%) were obesed, (11.6%) were overweight, (14.9%) were normal while (38.7%) and (4.3%) were underweight and several underweight respectively. Majority (71.6%) of the mothers arc currently breastfeeding their children and use homemade complementary food in feeding their children. The study, showed that the majority of the respondents had good knowledge (56.4%) and attitude (96.4%) towards complementary feeding practices and this may be as a result of the information gotten from the health center. Thus, complementary feeding education using various media especially the health facility is very important in promoting child nutritional status.