Feeding Patterns in The First Two Years of Life West of Tehran

In this descriptive cross-sectional survery, 820 children less than 2 years old were studied. The study was conducted in west of Tehran where the public health is supervised by Iran University of Medical Sciences and Health Services. Cases were selected by random stratified cluster sampling. It was shown that only 29.7% of infants were breast-fed within the first hour of life. 94% of children received colostrum. The rate of exclusive breast-feeding in first 6 months of life was 59.6%. Also, the feeding pattern of 15.5% of children was predominant breast-feeding in the first 6 months of life. Breast-feeding was continued in more than 59% of children older than 12 months. The rate of breast-feeding declined predominantly in the second year of life, especially in 16-18 months of age. In 87.3% of children, supplementary foods were introduced at 4-6 months of age. The most common age of introducing supplementary foods was end of 5th month and beginning of 6th month.