Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Exclusive Breast Feeding Among Lactating Mothers in Bedelle Town, Southwestern Ethiopia: Descriptive Cross Sectional Study

Breast feeding contributes to reduced infant morbidity and mortality due to diarrhea, respiratory or ear infections and other infectious diseases even though it remains a challenging due to lack of knowledge mothers. There is only limited information on exclusive breastfeeding practices in urban settings of Ethiopia especially in Bedelle town, Illubabor Zone, Southwestern Ethiopia. Thus, this study was aimed to assess knowledge, attitude and practice related with exclusive breastfeeding among lactating mothers in study area. A community based descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 220 lactating mothers who had a child aged less than 24 months from April to May, 2013 using a structured interviewer questionnaire. Systematic random sampling was used selected the study participants and descriptive statistics was carried out using SPSS for windows version 20.0. The majority of mothers, 91.8% knew the importance of exclusive breastfeeding and 87.3% mothers were had good attitude and strongly agree that the exclusive breastfeeding is advantageous for infants aged less than six months. Only 43.6% of mothers practiced exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months after delivery. This study indicated better understanding and perception of the importance of exclusive breastfeeding and poor practice to exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months postpartum among urban mothers. Thus, health care providers and decision makers should be comprehensively addressed on adverse work related issues to improve exclusively breast feeding practices in the study community. [Tsedeke Wolde, Gadisa Diriba, Ababa Wakjira, Genet Misganu, Girma Negesse, Habtamu Debela, Tadesse Birhanu and Eyasu Ejeta. Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Exclusive Breast Feeding Among Lactating Mothers in Bedelle Town, Southwestern Ethiopia: Descriptive Cross Sectional Study. Researcher 2014;6(11):91-97]. (ISSN: 1553-9865). http://www.sciencepub.net/researcher. 14