Study About The Status Of Early Breast Feeding And Its Effect On Physical Development Of Infants And The Potential Factors Influencing Feeding Patterns

ObjectiveTo study the trends of feeding patterns for infants in local district, and the effects of different feeding patterns on physical growth of infants aged 0-6 months. Mother’s knowledge about breastfeeding and the main factors influencing the infant feeding way in local district were also investigated.MethodsData of the physical growth and feeding patterns for 1, 3, 6-month-old infants were collected from 2011 to 2013, and statistical analysis was conducted.Infants aged 0-6 months without serious illness and mothers were selected as subjects during physical examination in January 2015. Questionnaire survey was conducted to obtain the basic situation of mothers and infants and mother’s awareness rate of breastfeeding knowledge, and the potential factors that might influencing the rate of breastfeeding were also explored.Results1. From 2011 to 2013, the main feeding patterns for 1-month-old baby is breast feeding, while the rate of breast feeding decreased accompanying with the increase of the age.2. The effects of different feeding methods on height and weight had no significant difference.3. The average score of respondents’ breastfeeding knowledge is 8.67?1.06, among which the maximum score is 10, while the minimum score is 5. The rate of pass is84.24%, and eight score was used as judgment standard.4. Mother’s age, education level, working way and awareness rate of breastfeedingknowledge were screened as the potential influencing factors of breastfeeding by multivariable Logistic regression analysis. Comparing with the older mothers, younger mothers were more likely to choose breastfeeding; Mothers with high degree of education, part-time work, high awareness rate of breastfeeding knowledge were more likely to choose breastfeeding.Conclusion1. In this area, infant breast feeding rate is relatively low, especially for 6 month old infants.2. Effects of different feeding patterns on the physical growth for infants less than6-month old were not significant.3. Age, education level, occupation, awareness rate of breastfeeding knowledge are the main factors influencing breastfeeding. Therefore, health education might be useful strategy to improve the infant breastfeeding rate.