Mothers Experience about Complementary Feeding Practice in Bangladesh

Background: Complementary feeding is a significant milestone that has nutritional, developmental, and health implications. Worldwide, 33% of the deaths are linked to malnutrition. Objective: To describe the mothers’ experience about complementary feeding practice with child aged less than two years in Bangladesh. Method: A descriptive qualitative study was conducted from July 2018 to June 2019. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) NIANER. 20 mothers of children of 6 - 24 months of age were recruited purposively who live in Sattalla slum. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the mothers’ demographic characteristics and thematic analysis was used to describe mothers’ experience about complementary feeding practice. Results: The study showed that the average age of the mothers was 25 (SD = 4.75) years. Only 5% of the mothers have higher education. Through the findings, two main themes have been identified. Moreover, first main theme includes three subthemes. Fifty percent of the mothers stated that appropriate time to start complementary food for their babies is from 6 months of age. Mothers feed various types of complementary foods. Most of the mothers have knowledge about complementary feeding but they do not practice appropriately. Almost all of the mothers (95%) stated that their babies do not like to eat anything, and 45% of mothers feed only breast milk. Conclusion: Findings of the study will provide information for the nurses resulted in increasing the rate of complementary feeding practice among mothers of children in Bangladesh. Future study is needed to identify the factors influencing complementary feeding practice among mothers of 6 - 24 months old children in Bangladesh.