Zeitschrift für Ernährung und Lebensmittelwissenschaften
Offener Zugang

Abstrakt

Recommended Infant Feeding Practices and Associated Factors among HIV Positive Mothers in Selected Health Facilities of South Ethiopia

Netsanet Abera*

Background: Mother-to-child transmission is the major route of HIV transmission in infants. About one third of children infected are believed to be vertically during breast-feeding. Infant feeding in the context of HIV is complex. As a result, HIV positive women are confused about infant feeding methods and mixed feeding continued to be widespread.

Objective: To assess magnitude of recommended infant feeding practice and its associated factors among HIV positive mothers in selected health facilities of South Ethiopia.

Methods: A facility based cross-sectional study was conducted in randomly selected 341 HIV infected mothers with children 6 to 24 months of age in the study. A structured and pretested questionnaire was used for data collection. Data was entered and cleaned in EpiData 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis. Binary and multivariate logistic regressions were done and odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated to identify associated factors.

Results: This study shows about 290 (85%) of mothers practiced recommended infant feeding. Significantly high number of mothers had practiced mixed feeding 51 (15%). In multivariate analysis mothers attending primary school AOR=3.9 (1.077-14.175), counseled and supported by health workers to choose recommended infant feeding practice AOR=4.44 (1.108-17.814), which was significantly associated with recommended infant feeding practice.

Conclusion: In this study recommended infant feeding practice was leading proportion of feeding practice among HIV positive mothers which is recommended by WHO as well as by Ethiopian ministry of health. Also, significantly high proportion of mothers had practiced mixed breast-feeding; this is an undesirable practice in infant feeding in the first 6 months of age. More extensive and comprehensive approach of infant feeding counseling should be put in place in order to increase recommended infant feeding practice by HIV positive mothers. Educating mothers, encouraging and supporting mothers to choose recommended infant feeding.