Practice of respiratory hygiene and attitude of Covid-19 positive mothers on breastfeeding at a tertiary care Centre, South India: A descriptive cross- sectional Study.

Background: Breastfeeding (BF) is the cornerstone of infant and young child survival, nutrition, development and maternal health. Covid-19 pandemic has led to fears, anxiety and psychological stress among postnatal mothers that can potentially affect their practices and attitude towards BF Objectives: To assess the knowledge, practices and attitude towards BF and the knowledge and practice towards respiratory hygiene among Covid-19 positive postnatal mothers. Method: A descriptive cross-sectional study was done on Covid-19 positive postnatal mothers admitted To McGann District Teaching Hospital, Shimoga, India, between April 2020 and September 2020. A pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Iowa Infant Feeding Attitude Scale (UFAS) was used to assess the attitude towards BF. Results: Among study participants, 90.7% were aware of the duration of exclusive breast feeding (EBF). Practice of EBF and initiation of complementary feeding at 6 months was done by 73.3% and 84% respectively; 74.7%, 84.7% and 84.7% of mothers had knowledge of continued BF till the age of 2 years, wearing mask during BF and washing hands with soap before and after touching the baby respectively. Respiratory hygiene was practiced by 58%; 100% of mothers agreed BF was less expensive than formula feeding; 34.7% mothers opined that nutritional benefit of the milk last only until the baby is weaned from breast milk. Statistically significant difference (p=0.008) was noted between low income and better attitude score. Average score of UFAS (60.08+5.76) lay in the range of neutral attitude towards BF. Conclusions: The present study demonstrated the neutral attitude towards BF among Covid-19 positive postnatal mothers. It also demonstrated a gap between knowledge and practice of good respiratory hygiene. An overview of COVID-19 infection during Pregnancy in a tertaiary care centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]