ABSTRACT

Globally it is estimated that undernutrition is directly and indirectly responsible for at least 35% of deaths in children less than five years of age. The immediate causes of malnutrition in the first two years of life are inappropriate breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices coupled with high rates of infections. Thus, this study was carried out to assess the infant and young child feeding practices and their anthropometric status in selected rural communities in Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State. A cross-sectional study design was used. Data were collected by using pretested questionnaires. A total of 250 mothers and their children were included in the study and a simple random sampling technique was used. The results obtained in this research showed that a few (19.6%) of the respondents introduced breastfeeding within 30 minutes after birth, majority (84.8%) of the mothers gave the first milk flow (colostrums) and only 34.8% gave only breast milk for the first six months. Millet pap (25.6%), maize pap (25.2%) and cerelac (19.6%) are the major semi-solid foods given to the children. Some (23.2%) of the respondents added Soyabean powder, 11.6% and 10.8% of them added sugar and milk respectively, while 16.0% of them added nothing to the porridge given to the child. A few (20.40%) of the mothers introduced semi solid food at six months while 33.6% of them introduced it below six months. Food and snacks commonly consumed by the children were akamu, bread, moi-moi, yam, garri, biscuits, pop-corn, bobo and mineral (coke, sprite, Fanta) etc. while orange, pinapple and cucumber were the fruits and vegetables commonly consumed by the children . The weight-for-height status reveals that 19.3 % of the male children were severely stunted while 20.2% of the female were severely stunted. Also, the weight –for-height status reveals that 4.5% of the children were severely wasted as the weight-for-age status reveals that 7.6% were severely underweight. There is a significant relationship (p<0.05) between the first food given to the child after birth and the child’s BMI for age status. Also the BMI for age and weight for height of the children was observed to be significantly (p<0.05) affected by what was added to porridge given to child. However, there is no significant relationship (p>0.05) between when breastfeeding was started, how the child was breastfeed for first 6 months, number of times the child do breastfeed in a day, when semi-solid was started, whether infant formula is given to the child, age family food was introduced and the anthropometric status (WHZ, HAZ, WAZ, and BMI for age) of the children. Therefore, emphases should be based on improving the breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices adopted by these women which could help to reduce the number of children at risk of undernutrition based on their weight-for-age, height-for-age and weight-for-height z-scores.