breastfeeding practices in infants in the west region of cameroon

background: the study was conducted to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes and practices of breast-feeding in the west re­gion of cameroon. methods: a cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in two health facilities on 195 mother-infant pairs, seen at the out patient and vaccination units of the bafoussam regional hospital over a period of one month from 1 st to 30 th septem­ber 2008. the socio-demographic characteristics of mothers, knowledge on breastfeeding and the practice of breastfeed­ing were studied. data was analyzed using the spss software. the chi square and student t - test were used for com­parison and results considered significant for p < 0.05. results: breastfeeding was practised by 99.48% of the mothers. only 33.8% of the mothers knew that they had to exclu­sively breastfeed up to 6 months, and 20% effectively breastfed up to 6 months. the mean duration of breastfeeding was 5.06 months and negatively correlated with the number of children and the profession of the mother. in 69.74% of the women, nothing was given to the baby before the first breastfeed. discontinuation of breastfeeding was done averagely around 15.24 months and earlier in married women and in those with a higher educational level. conclusion: although the majority of parents practised breast feeding, only a minority understood its benefits, so more should be done to educate the community on the benefits of exclusive breast-feeding for up to six months.