Exclusive Breast Feeding: Knowledge, Barriers and Practice among Antenatal Clinic Attendees at a Tertiary Hospital in a Developing Country.

Abstract

Background: Breast milk is natural and readily available. Exclusive breast feeding has been found to be benecial to the infants, mothers and the nation at large. However, the practice of exclusive breast feeding is suboptimal in developing and developed world. The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge, practice and barrier to practice of exclusive breast feeding among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic in University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study among consenting pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital. Pregnant women with at least one previous live birth were selected using simple random sampling. Data were collected with the aid of a pretested questionnaire. Sociodemographic information, information on knowledge, perception, and intention to practice exclusive breast feeding were obtained and analyzed using IBM-SPSS statistics version-23. Association between categorical variables were determined using chisquare. Results: Majority of the respondents were within the age range of 30-39 years. All respondents were aware of exclusive breast feeding and 215 (86.0%) of them had good knowledge of exclusive breast feeding. The participants that had practiced exclusive breast feeding in their previous pregnancies were 151(60.4%). There was a statistically signicant association between previous practice of EBF and the intention to practice it after the delivery of the index pregnancy (p = 0.003). Resumption to work was the commonest barrier the practice of Exclusive Breast Feeding. Conclusion Respondents had good knowledge, positive perception towards exclusive breast feeding and majority practiced exclusive breast feeding. Keywords: Exclusive breast feeding, practice, perception, intention, barriers