Infant feeding practices in urban and rural areas in Madhya Pradesh
Patodi, R.K.; Tiwari, S.C.; Mathur, L.K.
Indian Journal of Pediatrics 43(346): 333-338
1976
ISSN/ISBN: 0019-5456 PMID: 1025016 DOI: 10.1007/bf03177152Document Number: 332061
The study was of mothers and their 250 infants from rural and urban communities near Indore, India. The mothers were 15-40 years old. In the urban area all the infants were given plain water in addition to milk; in the rural area only 59.9% of the infants got water because of the belief that water was a 'cold' drink and could cause respiratory infections. In the rural area 40% of the infants were given honey as the first feed, 28% got ghutti (an indigenous herbal medicinal preparation available in the market or made at home), 16% cow's milk, 10.4% breast milk and goat or buffalo milk. In the urban area 40% got breast milk, 27.2% got honey as their first feed. Of the rural infants 92.4% were breast-fed on the 2nd to 5th day compared to 96% of the urban infants who got breast milk on day 1-4. While most of the rural infants were fed on demand their urban counterparts were fed regularly. Supplementary diluted or undiluted cow's or buffalo's milk was given to 42.4 and 64.8% of the rural and urban infants, respectively. Age at weaning was 13-15 and 10-12 months for the rural and urban infants. The weaning foods were mostly pulses and occasionally some kind of pudding (kheer, halwa or lapsi) or, in the urban area, vegetables and fruits. In the rural and urban areas 18.4 and 12.8% of the infants showed signs of nutritional deficiencies of protein, Ca, Fe and the B-group vitamins, after the age of 6 months.
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