Infant and young child feeding and care practices of caregivers in Albay, Philippines

Date

12-2016

Abstract

Proper infant and young child feeding (IYFC) is crucial to attaining good health status and development of children, especially during the first two years of life when children are most vulnerable to malnutrition. Recent calamities also necessitate strengthening the promotion and support of appropriate IYFC during calamities. In this study, the relationship between indicators and current IYCF and care practices of caregivers and nutritional status of children aged 0 to 23 months in Albay, Philippines is explored. A total of 234 caregivers were randomly selected for this study using multi-stage stratified random sampling. Results showed that no significant difference were found in the distribution of infants and young children from disaster-prone and non-disaster-prone areas based on socio-economic variables and participation in government programs. Generally, the IYCF and care practices of caregivers were relatively suboptimal. Comparing IYCF practices of caregivers, bottle feeding was the only indicator found to be significantly different between disaster and non-disaster-prone areas. Based on the IYCF Index only 55.6% of caregivers practice good infant and young child feeding, with highest prevalence observed in 0 to 5-months-old. Findings suggest that infants and young children are more nutritionally at risk as they grow older and those children who belonged to the lower income strata. Meanwhile, six IYCF indicators were found to have significant association with underweight, stunting and wasting. Based on binary logistic regression analysis, age of the index children, caregiver's age, educational level and participation in nutrition education programs and per capita income had significant contribution to prediction at 0.10 criterion of statistical significance.The authors conclude that improving IYCF practices is critical for infants and young children to reach their maximum physical and mental potential and reduce the prevalence of malnutrition. Therefore, the authors suggest that more programs be conducted not only to increase the purchasing power of households but also the caregiver's feeding knowledge and practices through nutrition education programs to improve the overall well-being of infants and young children in poor and secluded areas in Albay, Philippines.

Document Type

Master Thesis

Degree

Master of Science in Food Science

College

College of Human Ecology (CHE)

Adviser/Committee Chair

__

Language

English

En – AGROVOC descriptors

INFANT FEEDING; CHILD FEEDING; HEALTH; MALNUTRITION; NUTRITIONAL STATUS; PHILIPPINES

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