Infant and young child feeding practices and anthropometric indices of children aged 6-23 months in Giginyu General Hospital, Nasarawa LGA, Kano State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Under-nutrition remains a public health problem among children and poor complementary feeding practices have been implicated. Objectives: The study evaluated the infant and young child feeding practices and anthropometric indices of children aged 6-23 months in Giginyu General Hospital, Nasarawa L.G.A., Kano State. It also analysed the association between them. Methods: Adopting a cross-sectional study design, weight-for-length, weight-for-age, and length-for-age Z-scores of stratified and randomly selected 230 children were determined using the World Health Organisation (WHO) 2007 reference standard. Wasting, underweight, and stunting were established at less than ≤ -2 Z-scores. A structured-interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to elicit information from the mothers on infant and complementary feeding practices including exclusive breastfeeding (EBF), minimum meal frequency (MMF), minimum dietary diversity (MDD), minimum acceptable diet (MAD) among others. Chi-square test was used to assess associations between feeding practices and anthropometric indices. Results: Mean age, weight, and length of the children were 14.2 ± 5.6 months, 9.4 ± 8.2 kg, and 75.9 ± 6.9 cm, respectively. Wasting, underweight, and stunting prevalence were 24%, 19.7% and 17.5%, respectively. About 67.3% and 52.6% of the mothers initiated breastfeeding within an hour and practiced EBF, respectively while the continued breastfeeding rate (>1 year) was 70.4%. The bulk of the complementary foods consumed were grains/roots/tubers and legumes/nuts (74%) while less than 5% of the children received eggs, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables. Timely introduction of complementary foods was practiced by 53% while MMF, MDD and MAD were achieved by 59.6%, 34.8% and 37.0%, respectively. Children who consumed low iron-rich foods and did not continue breastfeeding after one year of age had significantly higher rates of wasting (p=0.04;0.01) and underweight (p=0.02;0.01), respectively than the other children. Conclusion: The infant and young child practices among the children in Giginyu LGA, Kano State were sub-optimal. Wasting was the most prevalent problem, and continued breastfeeding after one year and consumption of iron-rich foods were associated with under-nutrition.