Infants' complementary food pattern and mothers' knowledge in rural areas in ‎Rasht city

Introduction:&lrm;&rlm; &rlm;Prompt start of complementary food and mothers' knowledge regarding it is &lrm;very important for the child&rsquo;s nutritional status.&lrm; Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess infants' pattern of complementary food &lrm;and nutritional knowledge of mothers in rural areas in Rasht city.&lrm; Methods: In a cross-sectional study in summer of &lrm;&rlm;2006&rlm;&lrm;, among a group of women who &lrm;attended rural public health centers for infantile care in Rasht, we selected &lrm;&rlm;269&rlm;&lrm; women, by &lrm;random multi-stage cluster sampling. Demographic data, introduction time and type of &lrm;complementary food, knowledge and source of information were collected during interview &lrm;and recorded in a questionnaire. Depending on knowledge scores, the knowledge was &lrm;categorized in three levels: weak, intermediate and good. We used Fisher&rsquo;s Exact&rlm; &rlm;and Chi-&lrm;square tests for statistical analysis and p<&lrm;&rlm;0.05&rlm;&lrm; as significant. &lrm; Results: In this study &lrm;&rlm;91.8%&rlm;&lrm; of mothers had good nutritional knowledge. Rate of exclusive &lrm;breast feeding was &lrm;&rlm;93%&rlm;&lrm;. For more than &lrm;&rlm;80%&rlm;&lrm; of children Fereni (combination of milk and rice &lrm;powder) was the first complementary food at the beginning. About &lrm;&rlm;93%&rlm;&lrm; of children were &lrm;predominantly fed with homemade-food after the first year of their life and &lrm;&rlm;33%&rlm;&lrm; ate less than &lrm;&rlm;5&rlm;&lrm; meals a day. Rate of breast milk weaning was &lrm;&rlm;17%&rlm;&lrm; at the end of the first year. The first &lrm;source of nutritional knowledge of mothers was local health centers. &lrm; Conclusion: Women in this study had appropriate knowledge and performed according to &lrm;advised complementary food pattern. In attention to the important role of health centers in &lrm;increasing mothers' knowledge level regarding complementary food, giving more attention to &lrm;these centers is necessary.&lrm;