• Knowledge,Attitudes And Practice Of Exclusive Breastfeeding In Ido-Osi Local Government Area, Ekiti State.

ABSTRACT

Exclusive Breastfeeding has been recommended by the world health organization (WHO)

as the optimal feeding mode for young infants. This research study was designed to check out the

·. Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice of Exclusive Breastfeeding among women in Ido-Osi Local

Government in Ekiti State.

A cross sectional study was done to detennine the current level of the knowledge, attitude

and practice ofwomen on exclusive breastfeeding in Ido-Osi Local Government area.

Three research question and null as well as alternative hypotheses guided the study, which was

tested at 0.05 level ofsignificance. The design of the study was descriptive and 300

Questiommire was distributed at Federal Teaching Hospital Ido-Ekiti Maternity Ward

and Children Wards. This research was a non-experimental, explorative and descriptive study

that investigates the perceptions or views of its participants on exclusive breastfeeding. It was

found that the mothers find it difficult to practice exclusive breastfeedi11g for first child as

· majority who practice exclusive breastfeeding were 59.2% were having other children while only

40.8% of mother with first child practice exclusive breastfeeding, Thus it was found that the

position of child determined whether mother would practice exclusive breastfeeding with

· exclusive breastfeeding increases as education of mother increases, 6. 7% of mothers with

primary education practice EB while, secondary (23.8%) technical (41.8%) and higher education

approximately (32%) this was found to have greater chi-square valucX2= 47.27, p=0.000, which

· implies that mothers level of education would detennine the practice exclusive breastfeeding.

· Other factors that are significant were employment status of the mother (X2=41.57, p=0.000),

Does workplace provide for breastfeed, X2=18.894, p=0.000, Does workplace provide

refrigerator for breast milk, (X2=26.74, p=0.000), Mother's age, (X2=8.63, p=0.13).

This study recommends that more training and awareness campaign should be done to be

able to maintain high rate of compliance of exclusive breastfeeding, house-to-house survey

should be conducted to establish in,depth and understanding on the practice and knowledge of

exclusive breastfeeding in Ido-Osi. Ekiti State and Nigeria at large. The use of EBF (Exclusive

Breastfeeding) should be advocated among mothers and has been recommended by the world health organization (WHO) as the optimal feeding mode for young infants.