ABSTRACT

Infant feeding in the context of HIV is complex because of the major influence that feeding practices exert on child survival. The HIV epidemic has significantly altered the context within which women make decisions about how they will feed their infants. The aim of the study is to assessed knowledge and practice of infant feeding among HIV-positive mothers in selected Hospitals in Abeokuta South Local Government, Abeokuta. A cross sectional descriptive design was adopted and  a purposive sampling technique was employed to select the study participants from all the three facilities involves in PMTCT in the local government. Records of mothers with infants who were attending PMTCT service was obtained from registration books of each health facility. Proportionate allocation was carried out to distribute the total sample size (n = 212) to all the three institutions providing PMTCT service. A self-Structured questionnaire with a cronbach alpa reliability index  0.80,  0.82, 0.79 were used as instrument for data collection data  were done using descriptive statistics and hypotheses were tested using Pearson Chi-square test at < 0.05 level of significance all analysis were done using statistical package for social sciences. Findings from the study showed that 53.3% had adequate knowledge and 46.7% had inadequate knowledge of recommended feeding practices by WHO. A majority of the HIV positive mothers (68.9%) have poor feeding practices and 31.1% have good feeding practices. 86.8% of the HIV positive mothers practices exclusive breast feeding. There was significant relationship between mothers’ level of knowledge and mothers’ feeding practices, as (𝜒2=0.807, df=1,p-value=0.000). Also relationship between mother’s level of education and feeding practices was statistically significant (𝜒2=2.99, df=3, p-value=0.03).

The respondents had adequate knowledge of recommended infant feeding and had poor practices. Therefore education regarding infant feeding should be included into the health teaching during mothers’ visit to clinic.