Pattern of breastfeeding and occurrence of Cronobacter sakazakii in infant formula sold in Ekiti State, Nigeria

The presence of Cronobacter sakazakii in infant formula has been commonly reported in the recent time and has been implicated in infection of infants with high mortality rates. There is paucity of information the occurrence of C. sakazakii in infant formula in the study area hence this study. This work aimed at the determination of aerobic bacterial load and the susceptibility pattern of C. sakazakii isolated from the infant formula and to determine the factors that encourages bottle feeding. Standard microbiological methods were used to isolate and identify C. sakazakii and disc diffusion method was used to determine the susceptibility of the isolates to the tested antibiotics. Standard pre-test questionnaire was used to collect information on the pattern of infant formula feeding and breastfeeding among nursing mothers in the study area. The total aerobic bacterial counts of ten different infant formula screened ranged from 1.1x102 to 8.0 x 103 cfu/g. The least counts occurred in brand CWG whiles the highest was recorded in brand DNN. Out of ten brands of infant formula examined only four were positive for C. sakazakii. Eight antibiotics were tested against the isolated C. sakazakii. The isolates showed the highest resistance to tetracycline (99.93%) followed by nitrofurantoin (96.97%). Out of the total isolates tested 42.43%, 51.51% and 52.51% were resistant to amoxicillin/clavulanate, gentamicin and ofloxacin respectively. Based on the level of education, 83.33% of the participated nursing mothers had minimum of secondary education. A greater part of the respondents (82.35%) fed infant formula to their babies while about 17.65% does not. Mother gave different reasons for choosing infant formula for their babies. A total of 39 mothers reported their babies showed different signs of infections after been fed with infant formula. Most of the infant formula screened did not meet the international acceptable standards and the rate of bottle feeding is still high in the study area.