Factors associated with breastfeeding practice among mothers in Jazan City, Saudi Arabia

الملخص EN

Objective : To evaluate breastfeeding practice as well as to identify the factors that influence mothers decision to practice exclusive breastfeeding.

Subjects and methods: This is a cross sectional study carried out from March 2017 to Jun 2018.

Questionnaires were administrated to mothers who attended well baby clinics in primary health centers in jazan city.

Results : The study included 400 women with age range from 17 to 49 years.

Their children age ranged between 1 and 36 months.

Most of the participants were Housewife (67.8%) and 47.8 % of them were certified with university degree.

Most of women had full term babies (92 %), delivered normally (76 %), gave mixed feeding for their babies (76 %), did not use the pacifier (81%) and initiated first fed within one hour after delivery 54% that was derived from the breast in 75 %.

The majority of the study group was healthy (90 %) and majority of their children were healthy (95.5 %).The most prevalent reasons for breast feeding (BF) were awareness about the importance of BF (50.4 %) and advice of a family and/or mother (33.8 %).

The most prevalent reasons for artificial milk feeding were awarded artificial milk before delivery (26.8%), advice from relatives (24.7 %), mother’ belief that artificial milk is good like breast milk (23.2 %), and artificial milk awarded from the hospital during delivery (11.9 %).The majority of mothers were satisfied with breast feeding (92 %).

Conclusion : Mixed feeding is a common practice among women in Jazan while exclusive breast feeding was practiced by a proportion consistent with the WHO target proportion less than six months.