Attitude of Nursing Mothers In Edo State Towards Exclusive

Abstract

This study aims at investigating some social factors affecting exclusive breast¬feeding of infants with a view to synthesizing the implications of the findings for guidance and counselling. The design adopted for this study was ex-post factor The population of this study comprised all nursing mothers in the rural and urban areas of Edo State. A stratified random sampling procedure was adopted to select a sample of five hundred and twenty (520) nursing mothers from the three senatorial district of Edo State (North, Central and South). Attitude to Exclusive Breast-Feeding Scale (AEBTS) was the validated instrument used for data collection. The reliability co-efficient of the instrument was 0.80. The collected data were analysed using the z-test statistics and the one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The result revealed that the literate nursing mothers were more positively disposed to exclusive breast-feeding than the illiterate. Secondly, practice of exclusive breast-feeding adversely affected by the nursing mothers\' nature of work. The nurses and teachers were more favourably disposed to exclusive breast-feeding than the bankers. There is therefore need to provide an enabling environment for working mothers to cope with infant feeding and caring during the first six months. A grass-root approach is suggested in educating and counselling illiterate mothers to adopt a positive attitude towards the practice of exclusive breast¬feeding.

The Nigerian Journal Of Guidance And Counselling Vol. 7 (1) 2000: pp. 223-232