Breastfeeding Knowledge, Attitude, And Practices and Its Association with Food Insecurity During COVID-19

Abstract

Introduction: Child hunger commonly occurs in families with household food insecurity when mothers fail to continue breastfeeding due to stress and inability to produce sufficient breastmilk. This study aimed to investigate the association of breastfeeding KAP with food insecurity during the pandemic of COVID-19. Method: An online self-administered questionnaire related to the study was used to obtain data from 444 Malaysian Result: Findings showed that majority of the mothers have moderate to good KAP of breastfeeding. However, food insecurity and child hunger still occur. Conclusion: These findings may be helpful for healthcare professionals in developing effective strategies for efficient breastfeeding during the pandemic. Keywords: Breastfeeding knowledge; breastfeeding attitude; breastfeeding practices; food insecurity; COVID-19. eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under the responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7i21.3686