EXPLORING WOMEN'S AWARENESS ABOUT BREASTFEEDING AND HEALTH BENEFITS USING A CROSS-SECTIONAL SURVEY IN DHAKA CITY, BANGLADESH

This cross-sectional questionnaire based study was conducted among 200 randomly selected child bearing mothers aged 16 to 40 to evaluate their awareness regarding breastfeeding and its health benefits in urban and slum area of Dhaka city from July to December 2013. The study showed that about 46% of respondents completed higher secondary education or more and about 27% were illiterate. A significant proportion of mothers (75%) were employed while 25% were housewives. More educated mothers had significantly (p<0.001) better knowledge about colostrum milk (91.5%) about the appropriate duration of breastfeeding (81.40%) and that breast milk is the only food recommended for babies up to 6 months of age (96.90%) in comparison to that of the uneducated mothers (49.30%; 25.35% and 77.46%, respectively). Educated mothers were also significantly more likely than uneducated women to know about benefits of breastfeeding with regard to post-partum weight loss (OR=0.462, 95% CI 0.298-0.715, p<0.001), prevention of unwanted pregnancy (OR=0.064, 95% CI 0.030-0.136, p<0.001) and post-partum bleeding (OR=0.147, 95% CI 0.083-0.257, p<0.001). Awareness of recommended breastfeeding practices and its health benefits are not satisfactory so more attention from government and non-government authority is required for the welfare of both mother and children.