Journal of Pediatric Care

Feeding practices and malnutrition among under five children in communities of Kuje area council, federal capital territory Abuja, Nigeria

EuroSciCon Conference on Pediatrics 2017
November 13-14, 2017 London, UK

Clementina Ebere

Nutrition Section, Federal Capital Territory Primary Health Care Board, Nigeria

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Pediatr Care

DOI: 10.21767/2471-805X-C1-003

Abstract

Poor dietary practices and malnutrition, including severe acute malnutrition among under five children in Nigeria has remained a great public health concern. This study assessed infant and young child feeeding practices and nutritional status of under-five children to determine the prevalence of malnutrition in Kuje area council, Abuja. The study was a cross-sectional study. Multi-stage sampling techniques was used in selecting the population under study. Probability proportion by size was applied in choosing 30 clusters for the survey using ENA for SMART software 2011 version. Questionnaires were used to obtain information from the population, while appropriate equipment was used for measurements of anthropometric parameters. The data was also subjected to statistical analysis. Results were presented in tables and figures. The result showed that 96.7% of the children were breastfed, 30.6% had early initiation to breastfeeding within first hour of birth and 22.4% were breastfed exclusively up to 6 months, 69.8% fed infants� colostrum, while 30.2% discarded colostrum. About half of the respondents (49.1%) introduced complementary feeding before six months and 23.2% introduced it after six months while 27.7% had age appropriate timely introduction of complementary feeding. The anthropometric result showed that the prevalence of global acute malnutrition (GAM) was 12.8%, severe wasting prevalence was 5.4%, moderate wasting was 7.4%, underweight was 24.4%, stunting was 40.3% and overweight was 7.0%. The result showed that there is high prevalence of malnutrition among under five children in Kuje.