Infant nutritional care practices among mothers attending child welfare clinics in Tigania East district, Meru County, Kenya

Abstract

It has been scientifically proven that breastfeeding and appropriate complimentary feeding effectively promotes child survival. Despite this evidence, research has revealed that the practice of breastfeeding and complimentary feeding remains poor in many parts of the world. This has contributed to the continued existence of poor indicators of child survival. This study is aimed at identifying the practice and the factors influencing infant nutritional care among the mothers of infants attending CWC in the health facilities within Tigania East district. This will include the identification of the breastfeeding and complimentary feeding practices, identification of the socioeconomic factors influencing breastfeeding and complimentary feeding and determination of the level of knowledge on breastfeeding and complimentary feeding among these mothers. The study is expected to produce important information that could be useful in planning and running of programs on promotion of infant nutritional care for enhancement of child survival. This information would be useful to the administrations of the health facilities, the ministry of health and the NGOs involved in infant nutritional care promotion programs. Individuals intending to carry out more studies on infant nutritional care in this area would find this information important in forming the basis of their studies. The study will employ the cross sectional descriptive design. Stratified random sampling will be used to ensure proportional representation of all the levels of health facilities. At the facility level systematic random sampling will be used to pick the individual participants. A sample of 188 subjects will be recruited to participate in the study. Data will be collected by use of semi structured interview schedule with both closed and open headed questions. This data collection tool will be administered by the researcher/assistant. The focused group discussions will also be utilised and a focused group discussion guide will be developed to guide the discussions. A pilot study will be carried out in Miathene sub district hospital to test the data collection instruments. Data management will involve the use of SPSS version 17 computer soft ware. Chi square test will be used to check for relationship of variables. Recordings from the FGDs will be transcribed and main concepts identified. The qualitative data will be triangulated with the quantitative data to enhance validity and reliability of the findings. Both descriptive and inferential statistics will be computed and presented by use of graphs, pie charts and tables.