Breast Feeding Practices in Post IMNCI Era in Rural Community of Haryana

Breastfeeding has been accepted as the most vital intervention for ensuring optimal growth and development of children and for reducing infant mortality. Commensurate with this concept, breast feeding has been included in the training program of Integrated Management of Neonatal & Childhood Illness (mentioned as IMNCI in subsequent text of this paper) for doctors, Anganwadi workers (AWW), ASHA and Women Self Help groups all over the country. In the state of Haryana, IMNCI training for above mentioned groups was completed by middle of January 2012 & the present study was conducted after this training was imparted.

The study was conducted with the objective to find the impact of IMNCI training on the pattern of breastfeeding practices in the rural areas of Haryana.

The study was carried out in the field practice area of SGT Medical College Gurgaon, that is, village Kaliyawas from 1st Feb to 30^th April 2012. Study Group comprised of lactating mothers with at least one child of age under 3 years, attending the immunization session organized centrally in the selected village.

Only 26.2% of the study group initiated breastfeeding within 1 hour of child birth & 73.8% had initiated breast feeding later than 1 hour. Commonest reason for late initiation was stated as ‘family custom’ based on advice of elderly women in the household & traditional belief. Colostrum feeding was practiced by 70.5% of the mothers. As regards exclusive breast feeding, majority of mothers (62.3%) reported not practising exclusive breast feeding. Conclusion: Community based programmes launched by Health Services, both at state level as also at the national level for promotion of breast feeding and for imparting correct breast feeding practices are yet to create their desired impact.