Food preferences during complementary feeding period among nursing mothers attending immunization clinic at Massey street children’s hospital Lagos island, Lagos state, Nigeria

Abstract

Objective: Globally, malnutrition is the major cause of childhood mortality, being implicated in about 50% of all deaths in children under the age of five. About two-thirds of these deaths occur in the first year of life with inappropriate transition between breastfeeding and family diets being mostly implicated. This study was carried out to ascertain the complementary food preferences of nursing mothers attending the immunization clinic at a secondary health care facility in Lagos, Nigeria.
Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from March to June 2011. A calculated sample size of 252 nursing mothers was selected from the study population using systematic sampling technique. An interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to obtain relevant data, which was analyzed using SPSS version 15.0.
Results: The respondents ranged in age from 18 to 42 years with a mean age of 28.7 years (± 4.8 SD). Majority (59.5%) of the mothers had good understanding of what complementary feeding means yet most (41.5%) started introducing other foods between the ages of 4 to 6 months. Most (41.3%) of the nursing mothers preferred plain pap as the first complementary food and most of their babies (40.5%) ate commercial baby cereal more frequently than other foods. There were statistically significant associations between respondents’ tribe and occupation and the age of introducing other foods to a child (p < 0.05). Factors that were significantly associated with complementary food preference included: influence of advice from family, friends, and hospital nurse; socio-cultural variables such as belief and cost; father’s influence; mother’s work; child’s taste and medical condition such as diarrhoea (p < 0.05)
Conclusion: The nursing mothers did not give adequate nutritive complementary foods to their children. They would therefore benefit from health education about the appropriate complementary diets and practices.

Keywords: Food preferences, complementary foods, complementary feeding period, nursing mothers, infants.