A SURVEY ON BREAST FEEDING IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

In this paper breastfeeding was studied among 10240 urban and 10794 rural mothers, whose children were 18 to 23 months of age. The sample size for rural and urban areas was equal, butin each province the cluster sampling method was used proportional to the population of each district. The results ofthe study show that between 17% to 28% of urban mothers in the provinces have deprived their children from the minimum period of breastfeeding namely 4 months. The results also show that between 51 % to 68% of mothers have breastfed their children for at least one year. The percentage of mothers who have breastfed their children for at least 1.5 years was in the range of 36% to 50%. On the other hand, 11 % to 22% of mothers residing in rural areas have never breastfed their children or if so, the period has been less than 4 months. The percentage of mothers who have breastfed their children for at least one year is in the range of 61 to 79 percent. The percentage for mothers who have breastfed their children for 1.5 years is between 47 to 66 percent. The overall conclusion is that: _ Rural mothers have more willingness to breastfeed their children than urban mothers. _ In all urban areas and in some rural areas, illiterate mothers have a higher percentage of breastfeeding. _ In some rural areas, literate mothers breastfed their sons more than their daughters.