Study the level of nutritional knowledge of mothers of breast and artificial feeding in Sharkia governorate

Abstract EN

The aim of this work was to study the level of nutritional knowledge of mothers about breast and artificial feeding, sources of nutritional knowledge of mothers was also studied.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 200 mothers, selected randomly from urban and rural areas in Sharkia Governorate, Egypt during the period from March to May, 2019.

All mothers filled a questionnaire to evaluate their knowledge about breast and artificial feeding.

The results showed that the highest percentage of working and housewives mothers (50.0 and 53.1% ) were aged 25-32 years old, respectively.

About 65.8 and 46.3% of the working mother and housewives mothers were from urban area, respectively.

The majority of working mothers were educated.

The results revealed that the majority of working and housewives mothers (97.5 and 92.1% ) were married.

The results indicated that the children sex was 63.2% male and 36.8% female for working mothers.

Whereas, they were 46.9% male and 53.1% female for housewives.

It is obvious that the 57.9% of working mothers had children their age were (576-850) days.

Whereas, the highest proportion of housewives (37.7% ) had children their age was 25-300 days.

The results indicated that the percentage of good nutrition children was 97.5 and 89.5% of housewives and working mothers, respectively.

The results declared that the working and housewives mothers get nutritional knowledge by percent 63.2 and 46.3% from visiting doctor, respectively.

The results illustrated that the highest percentage of working and housewives mothers (84.2 and 60.5% ) had low level of general knowledge about breast feeding.

Also, most of working and housewives mothers (76.3 and 62.3% ) had low level of general knowledge about artificial feeding.

It can be concluded that the most of subjects had low level of knowledge about breast and artificial feeding.

Therefore, the recommendions are the use of programs to raise awareness for mothers about breast and artificial feeding.