Research Article Open Access Journal of Neonatal Biology J o u r n a l o f N e o n a t a l B i o l o g y ISSN: 2167-0897 Verma and Dixit, J Neonatal Biol 2016, 5:3 DOI: 10.4172/2167-0897.1000228 Volume 5 • Issue 3 • 1000228 J Neonatal Biol, an open access journal ISSN: 2167-0897 Knowledge and Practices of Exclusive Breastfeeding among Women in Rural Uttar Pradesh Akanksha Verma 1 * and Priyanka Dixit 2 1 India Health Action Trust, Uttar Pradesh Technical Support Unit, Lucknow, India 2 School of Health Systems Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Govandi Station Road, Deonar, Mumbai, India Keywords: Exclusive breast feeding; Pre-lacteal fees; Early initiation of breast feeding; Breastfeeding promotion network of India; Aaganwadi workers; Ante-natal check-up Introduction Nutrition is one of the very basic necessities for each species to live, survive, sustain as well as essential to grow, develop and to lead a productive life. Te word ‘nutrition’ has been derived from the word ‘nutricus’ which means to ‘suckle at breast’. During pregnancy the placenta is the main source of nutrition to the growing foetus. Afer delivery one of the frst gifs or boon received by a baby is from the mother which is a promise by her to her baby to provide everything needed for this little Considering a life course perspective it can be seen that nutrition to the baby is a very important and efective link which will cater to many issues like mal-nutrition, mortality, morbidities which may have debilitating efects on not only on the individual but also on the society as a whole. According to the World Health Organisation (2009) “Exclusive breastfeeding means that an infant receives only breast milk from his or her mother or a wet nurse, or expressed breast milk, and no other liquids or solids, not even water, with the exception of oral rehydration solution, drops or syrups consisting of vitamins, minerals supplements or medicines” Breastfeeding confers both the short and the long-term benefts to both the child and mother. One of the basic functions which early initiation of breastfeeding does is to ensure an early skin-to-skin contact between the mother and the new born which is very important in reducing the chances of hypothermia in the baby and also helps in establishing the bond between the mother and her child. Te other benefts of breast feeding include protecting children against a variety of acute and chronic disorders which contributes to the reduction of neo-natal mortality. It has also been seen that the cases of diarrhoea and pneumonia which are two of the most important causes of neo-natal and infant mortality are more common and more severe in those children who are artifcially fed (WHO/UNICEF (2003) Global strategy for infant and young child feeding. Geneva, World Health Organization). It has been seen that breast feeding had an important role in the proper and better cognitive development of the baby [1-5]. In 1929, Hoefer and Hardy had observed that there was a positive association between breastfeeding and the intelligence among children aged between 7 to 13 years. Further in 1950, Douglas reported that the duration of breastfeeding had an inverse relationship with the age at which the child started walking. For the mother, it has been further seen Abstract Background: Breast feeding has been defnes as the practice through which adequate nutrition and other nutritional requirements of the new born are being taken care of. Exclusively Breast feeding is a term used to defne the process by which only breast milk is given to the new born till the frst six months of life. But it has been enveloped in many layers of the factors like the Social and cultural attitudes which further affect the practice and rate of breast feeding worldwide and also in India which is considered to be one of the major reasons for the IMR and under-5 mortality rate. Methods: Cross-sectional study was conducted using a semi-structured interview schedule. A total of 256 mothers who were in their reproductive age and had delivered in the last 12 months were interviewed. Results: While studying the practice of exclusive breast-feeding among the participants it was seen that the practice of exclusive breast-feeding were low among them, i.e., only 24.8% of the total women going for the practice of exclusive breast-feeding. On looking at the various reasons for the early cessation of exclusive breast feeding, multiple responses were seen like breast related factors included reasons like breast feeding were painful or the baby had diffculty in swallowing. Cultural belief was seen to be one of most dominant factor for the practice of giving pre-lacteal feed. It was seen that many factors associated with the practice of breastfeeding including psychosocial factors, maternal socio- demographic characteristics, hospital practices and environmental support, etc. Conclusion: Nutrition has been considered to be one of the basis of a healthy foundation of the future. Breast milk and breast feeding has been considered to be the best nutrition for the new born till the frst six months of age. Under nutrition during frst two years impairs not only the cognitive development, intelligence, strength, energy and productivity. Although breast feeding is almost universal in India the rate of early initiation of breast feeding and exclusive breast feeding are dismally low. Several f actors can be attributed to this which has a great infuence on the breast feeding practices. *Corresponding author: Akanksha Verma, District Nutrition Specialist, India Health Action Trust, Uttar Pradesh Technical Support Unit, Lucknow, India, Tel: 0522 4931777; E-mail: drakankshaverma@rediffmail.com Received July 17, 2016; Accepted July 30, 2016; Published August 05, 2016 Citation: Verma A, Dixit P (2016) Knowledge and Practices of Exclusive Breastfeeding among Women in Rural Uttar Pradesh. J Neonatal Biol 5: 228. doi: 10.4172/2167-0897.1000228 Copyright: © 2016 Verma A, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.