Feeding Patterns in One-year-old Children Referred to Urban and Rural Health Care Centers in Rafsanjan City in 2017

The early years of life are the most critical stage in the growth and development of children. While the optimal development of children depends on a complex set of factors, the pattern of breastfeeding and complementary feeding of infants is of undeniable importance. Therefore, the present study conducted to investigate the factors related to the feeding patterns of one-year-old children referred to healthcare centers in Rafsanjan city. 

his descriptive study was performed on 600 mothers with one-year-old children under the auspices of healthcare centers in Rafsanjan city in 2017. Volunteered mothers with active health records were selected randomly. The required information was collected through a questionnaire containing demographic characteristics and questions related to the feeding of children and was analyzed by SPSS software, version 18.

The Ethics Committee of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences (RUMS) approved the present study (Code: IR.RUMS.REC.1396.179).

About 95% of mothers participating in this study started breastfeeding their children up to one hour after delivery, but 56.7% of them completed breastfeeding by one year of age. The results show that most mothers had started supplemental feeding with two or three spoons in each meal, and about 90% of them followed the health worker's advice. Also, the most important reasons for feeding children with powdered milk are disorders in the child's development (34%), inadequate breast milk (17%), maternal disease (14%), do not take the mother's breast (11%) and children being twins (8%).

Despite face-to-face training for mothers in health care centers for feeding their children, still there are some difficulties in commencing complementary feeding and its continuation. Therefore, need for more health and nutrition education regarding the best ways for feeding children to mothers by personnel of Rafsanjan health care centers.