Breastfeeding skills in Arba Minch Zuria: The positioning and attachment initiatives

Abstract

Proper child positioning and attachment initiates the production of optimal amounts of breast milk and contribute to the comfort of a child during suckling. Poor breastfeeding practices like early cessation and poor breastfeeding skills, introduction of unclean artificial feeding have been widely documented in the world. This cross-sectional community based study was carried out between October 7 and 25, 2013 in Arba Minch Zuria. Structured questionnaires and observational-checklist were used to collect data. The missing values and outliers, data, were checked and entered in double. Multivariable logistic regression was done to identify the predictors of poor and good positioning and attachment to breast. More than one-fifth of 384 (20.1%) infants was poorly positioned and attached to breast. Poor attachment of children to the breast were negatively associated with infant’s age below 6 (AOR=0.03 (0.01, 0.11)), attending breast feeding education (AOR=0.42(0.19, 0.93)) and positively associated with having an uneducated husband (AOR=0.07(0.01, 0.51)). Poor child positioning were also negatively associated with infant’s age below 6 (AOR=0.03(0.01, 0.10)), lack of information on breastfeeding (AOR=0.42(0.19, 0.94)), and early introduction of additional food (AOR=0.44(0.20, 0.97). Overall, in more than one-fifth of mothers (20.1%), the breastfeeding attachment and positioning were found to be lower than the national and global recommendations. It is highly related to infant’s age, paternal educational and an exposure to breastfeeding education. Thus, continuous community based nutritional health education were needed to promote optimal breastfeeding skills using health workers, religious leader and local community resource people as key actors.