Knowledge and practices of mothers with 6–24-month-old babies on complementary feeding

The study was conducted to evaluate the knowledge and practices of mothers with 6–24-month-old babies on complementary feeding. The research was carried out with 242 mothers who had babies aged 6-24 months were admitted to the pediatrics outpatient clinic of the Sürmene State Hospital affiliated with Trabzon Provincial Health Directorate February-May 2020. In the study, data were collected by face-to-face interview method. Descriptive statistics, A Chi-square test were used to analyze the data. The significance level was considered as p<0.05. The mean age was 31.32±4.88 years for the mothers, and 14.17±6.57 months for the babies. The mean of exclusive breastfeeding of babies was 4.67±2.17 months. 83.5% of the mothers received information about complementary feeding, and the main source of information was health personnel for 59.5%.48.3% of the mothers started complementary feeding as they thought that breast milk alone was inadequate. The first complementary food that 42.2% of mothers preferred was yogurt. A significant difference was found in terms of the number of children the mother had, the status of receiving information about complementary feeding, the birth order of the baby, the presence of any health problems of the baby, the time and reason for starting complementary foods, and the first complementary food given (p<0.05). Besides, there was a significant difference between the mother's educational status, employment status, and family income, and the reason for starting complementary foods and the first complementary food given (p<0.05). A significant difference was also seen between family type and the reason for starting complementary food (p<0.05). As a result, the study revealed that one-third of the mothers started complementary feeding at an inappropriate time, most of them had wrong reasons to start complementary feeding and they had incomplete information about which complementary foods should be given. Keywords: Baby, breastfeeding, complementary feeding, mothers, nursing