International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | November 2016 | Vol 3 | Issue 11 Page 2993 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Mittal H et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2016 Nov;3(11):2993-2996 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article Assessment of knowledge of mothers regarding benefits of exclusive breast feeding in mother and children: a hospital based study Hemlata Mittal*, Dileep Kumar Goyal, Jyoti Jain, Anmol Khandelwal INTRODUCTION Breastfeeding, a component of primary health care has been identified world over as greatest protector of child health. It is fundamental for child’s growth and development and also has great protective potential against major killer diseases of childhood. The World Health Organisation (WHO)/United Nation Children Fund (UNICEF) jointly recommend that women exclusively breastfed their infants for the first 6 months and continue to breastfed into the second year of life or longer. The importance of breastfeeding, especially EBF, is well established for the infant, the mother and the family. 1 In those settings when infant formula is used, they are introduced early and over-diluted. METHODS This cross sectional and hospital based study was conducted by Department of Community Medicine, Geetanjali Medical College and Hospital, Udaipur during the period of Jan 2016-March 2016. For the study, 500 mothers from post natal ward who had nursed their children in last five years were interviewed after taking verbal consent and using pre-tested questionnaire. Permission was sought from concerned authorities for this study explaining them the purpose of exercise and fixing time and place. Clearance was obtained from the Ethical committee of the College for the study. ABSTRACT Background: Breastfeeding, a component of primary health care has been identified world over as greatest protection of child health. Irrespective of the fact that breastfeeding in India is universal, psychological barrier still exist in early breastfeeding. Hence a study was conducted to find benefits of breastfeeding for mothers and for their child. Objectives of the study were to study benefits of breast feeding in mothers and to study benefits of exclusive breast feeding among children Methods: The study was conducted in Geetanjali Medical College and Hospital and its urban and rural health centres. 500 women who had nursed in last 5 years were interviewed using structured questionnaire. Results: 500 mothers were interviewed over a period of 6 months.31% were from semi urban, 52% population was from the urban area, 17% were from rural.72 percent mothers initiated breast feeding on the first day with 83% feeding their new born colostrum. Conclusions: This study emphasises that mother should be educated and motivated for exclusive breastfeeding their babies for 6 months and continue breastfeeding till 2 years. The benefits of breastfeeding for mothers should be explained for this purpose. Keywords: Benefits of breastfeeding, Duration of breastfeeding, Exclusive breastfeeding Department of Community Medicine, GMCH, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India Received: 28 September 2016 Accepted: 03 October 2016 *Correspondence: Dr. Hemlata Mittal, E-mail: drhemmittal@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20163539