Influence of Postnatal Mothers’ Breastfeeding Practices on the Weight-Gain Patterns of their Infants

Abstract

Breastfeeding provides the optimal nutrition for infants during the first year of life when there is rapid physiological and developmental growth. This study explored the influence of postnatal mothers’ breastfeeding practices on the weight gain patterns of their infants. Convenient sampling method was used to select 299 postnatal mothers who visited infant welfare clinics along with their infants in three levels of health care institutions in South-East zone of Nigeria. One research question and two null hypotheses guided the study. The instruments used for data collection in the study were questionnaire on patterns of Breastfeeding by postnatal mothers (QPBF) and Checklist on Health status of the infants with varied Breastfeeding patterns (CHSIVBP). Frequency distribution and percentages were used to answer the research question while the null hypotheses were tested using chi-square and Wilcoxon W tests at 0.05 level of significance. The result indicated normal weight-gain patterns for infants whose mothers were breastfeeding, significant association between the infants’ weight-gain pattern and the frequency of breastfeeding among the postnatal mothers, and that parity significantly influenced the breastfeeding patterns of the postnatal mothers.