Knowledge, Attitude and Practice towards Exclusive Breastfeeding among Lactating Mothers, Mizan Aman Town, Southwestern Ethiopia: Descriptive Cross Sectional Study

Background: Breast milk not only is an ideal nutrition for the infant, but also can protect against some diseases. Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) is the best nutrition for the children during the first 6 months of life. However EBF remains a challenge. The aim of the study was to assess Knowledge, Attitude and Practice towards exclusive breastfeeding among Lactating mothers in Mizan Aman town, South West Ethiopia. Methods: A Community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 350 mothers in Mizan Aman town, South West Ethiopia, in April 2015 using a structured interviewer administered questionnaire using ‘recall since birth’ method. Systematic random sampling was used to select the study participants and descriptive statistics was carried out using SPSS for windows version 20.0. Results: Three hundred and fourteen mothers with their index child less than 2 years were enrolled. Even though 93.6% of study participants had ever heard about EBF only about 34.7% were knowledgeable with recommended duration. About 89.5% of have positive attitude but only 59.3% believe that only EBF is enough for child up to 6 months and EBF on child less than six months was about 26.4%. Conclusion: In this study even though majority of mothers were knowledgeable about EBF and have positive attitude towards EBF, knowledge with recommended duration of EBF, attitude of mothers towards sufficiency of EBF and EBF for 6 months was found to be low. This study concluded poor knowledge and practice to EBF for the first six months postpartum. So that improving access to information on recommended infant feeding and fulfilling the minimum enabling conditions the WHO advocated such as paid maternity leave, part-time work arrangements, facilities for expressing and storing breast milk and breastfeeding breaks for women in paid employment is recommended.