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Background: Adequate infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices are essential to ensure optimal survival, health, growth, development and overall nutritional status of children. Objective: The objective of the present study was to assess the IYCF practices among mothers with children aged 0-23 months attending immunisation clinic at a tertiary care hospital of Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh. Materials and methods: A hospital based cross-sectional study was conducted at immunisation clinic, King George's Medical University from January 2015 to September 2015. Systematic random sampling was used and a total of 240 mothers with children 0-23 months old attending immunisation clinic were interviewed with the help of pre-designed, pre-tested and semi-structured questionnaire. Results: Breastfeeding (BF) was initiated within one hour of birth in 18.3% of children. Early initiation of BF was significantly associated with educational and socioeconomic status of mother and type of delivery. Pre-lacteal feeds were given to 23.4% of the children, children born at government health facility and with birth order ≤2 received pre-lacteal feeds more often. Colostrum was given by 67.9% of the mothers. Children born at private institutions or home were more likely to receive colostrum (p< 0.05). The prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding for at least 6 months was 53.8%. It was higher in children belonging to low socioeconomic group (p< 0.05). Complementary feeding was initiated at 6 months in 32.8% of children. Children of mothers belonging to upper socioeconomic class, nuclear family and delivered at government institution through normal delivery were more likely to be started on timely complementary feeding (p<0.05). Conclusion: The study revealed that inadequate IYCF practices are still quite prevalent in the community and therefore emphasis should be given to IYCF education sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective The objective of this study was to determine the role of non-hospital delivery and other risk factors for permanent congenital and early-onset hearing loss (PCEHL) in a developing country. Design Matched case–control study. Setting Four primary healthcare centres in inner-city Lagos, Nigeria. Population Fifty-six infants with PCEHL and 280 normal hearing controls matched for age and sex from a population of infants not older than 3 months attending Bacille de Calmette-Guérin immunisation clinics. Methods Conditional logistic regression analyses of infant and maternal characteristics associated with PCEHL, and the evaluation of population exposure to each risk factor. Main outcome measures Adjusted matched odds ratios and population attributable risk percent (PAR%). Results Children with PCEHL were significantly more likely to be first born (OR 1.9, 95% CI 1.1–3.6) without skilled attendants at birth (OR 2.4, 95% CI 1.3–4.5) and have a history of neonatal jaundice requiring exchange blood transfusion (NNJ/EBT) (OR 9.6, 95% CI 2.4–38.2) but less likely to be small for gestational age (SGA) (OR 0.1, 95% CI 0.0–0.5). After controlling for other covariates, the absence of skilled attendants at birth (OR 4.2, 95% CI 2.0–8.6) and NNJ/EBT (OR 19.1, 95% CI 4.3–85.5) emerged as predictors of PCEHL, while SGA (OR 0.1, 95% CI 0.0–0.2) retained its inverse relationship with PCEHL. The PAR% was 35.9% for the lack of skilled attendants at birth and 10.6% for having NNJ/EBT. About 23% of children with PCEHL did not exhibit any risk factors. Conclusions NNJ/EBT and the absence of skilled attendant at birth rather than the place of delivery are significant predictors of PCEHL in this study population. Targeted hearing screening using these risk factors would facilitate the detection of about 77% of children with PCEHL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]