Survey on the introduction of complementary foods to infants within the first six months and associated factors in rural communities of Jimma Arjo

Background: Although breastfeeding is one of the components of Primary Health Care in Ethiopia, a wide range of harmful infant feeding practices are documented even after the implementation of infant and young child feeding guidelines. However, no studies were documented about complementary feeding patterns and factors associated with early introduction of complementary feeding in the study area. Methods and Materials: Community based cross-sectional study was carried out in JimmaArjoWoreda from December to January 2009. Quantitative data were collected from a sample of 382 respondents supplemented by qualitative data generated using in-depth interviews of 15 key informants.Data were analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. Binary logistic regressions were used to measure the strength of association between independent and dependent variables using odds ratios and 95% of confidence intervals. Finally, multivariate logistic regression analysis was done to identify the predictors of early introduction of complementary food. Results: About 42.9% of mothers initiated complementary feeding before 6 months. The majority of mothers early initiated complementary feeding since they believed that breast milk was insufficient and influences from social beliefs. Findings from this study showed that young maternal age, child age below 1 month, child age 1-2 months, breastfeeding initiation within the first hour of child birth, having information about exclusive breastfeeding and maternal attitude about the dietary importance of breast milk for their children were negatively associated with early introduction of complementary food. However, lack of sufficient time with their children was one of predisposing factor for early introduction of the additional food before 6 months. Conclusions: Findings from this study showed that 42.9% of mothers introduced complementary food before 6 months. As this can cause malnutrition and exposure to different types of infections, the contributing factors to early introduction of complementary food should be taken into account while designing intervention strategies. In addition promotion of strong community based networks using Health Extension Workers and local community’s resource people as key actors is important to tackle this problem.