Knowledge and practices that mothers have about exclusive breastfeeding and early weaning in children under six months

Abstract

The main objective of the research was to explore the knowledge and practices that mothers have about exclusive breastfeeding and early weaning in children under six months, who attended the San Rafael Obrajuelo Health Department Department of Peace from January to July 2004 The study focused on describing the presence of the problem and how often it was occurring; the sample was 109 mothers breastfeeding children under six months; The instruments used were questionnaires that contained 28 open questions and the observation guide with 15 aspects to observe which were provided to 43 mothers on a home visit. The results obtained showed that 68.81% of mothers have no knowledge of the advantages of breastfeeding, 92.66% of mothers do not know the nutritional difference of breast milk and milk formulas, 79.07% of them do not perform hygiene in The nipples before breastfeeding the baby, 99.08% do not know of any legal entity that supports or promotes the fulfillment of breastfeeding, 22.18% said that their children do not fill only with the breast for what they practice early weaning by feeding them with Dairy formulas before six months. It was also found that 53.21% of the mothers only eat toasted tortillas, dry cheese and chocolate during the postpartum period, because they believe that the blood made them sick and the baby sick if they ate other foods.