Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Exclusive breastfeeding and weaning practices among mothers in Ghana

Exclusive breastfeeding and weaning practices among mothers in Ghana The purpose of this study was to investigate exclusive breastfeeding and weaning practices among breastfeeding mothers. Purposive and convenience sampling methods were used to recruit 60 breastfeeding mothers at a child welfare clinic in one hospital in the northern part of Ghana. Questionnaires were used to collect data. The findings reveal that 65% of mothers exclusively breastfed their infants, whereas 35% of mothers added other foods such as porridge, herbal tea/water, baby formula and coconut water before six months of age. In addition, 98% of mothers put the baby to the breast within 24 hours of delivery. After six months mothers included mashed yam, soft cooked rice and ‘weanimix’. The findings suggest that health-care workers need to intensify education and support women on exclusive breastfeeding in view of its benefits to infants and mothers. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png African Journal of Midwifery and Women's Health Mark Allen Group

Exclusive breastfeeding and weaning practices among mothers in Ghana

Download PDF
5 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/mark-allen-group/exclusive-breastfeeding-and-weaning-practices-among-mothers-in-ghana-RwBU3ENw39
Publisher
Mark Allen Group
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 MA Healthcare Limited
ISSN
1759-7374
eISSN
2052-4293
DOI
10.12968/ajmw.2009.3.4.44809
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate exclusive breastfeeding and weaning practices among breastfeeding mothers. Purposive and convenience sampling methods were used to recruit 60 breastfeeding mothers at a child welfare clinic in one hospital in the northern part of Ghana. Questionnaires were used to collect data. The findings reveal that 65% of mothers exclusively breastfed their infants, whereas 35% of mothers added other foods such as porridge, herbal tea/water, baby formula and coconut water before six months of age. In addition, 98% of mothers put the baby to the breast within 24 hours of delivery. After six months mothers included mashed yam, soft cooked rice and ‘weanimix’. The findings suggest that health-care workers need to intensify education and support women on exclusive breastfeeding in view of its benefits to infants and mothers.

Journal

African Journal of Midwifery and Women's Health – Mark Allen Group

Published: Oct 1, 2009

There are no references for this article.