The perception of producing insufficient milk (Cherop,
The Background to the StudyExclusivebreastfeeding is defined as the act or practice of feeding the baby solely onbreast milk during the first six months after birth, no water, glucose juice orother juice beside breast milk, this is followed by the introduction ofsupplementary feeds along with continuous breast milk, up to the second year oflife World Health Organization (WHO), 2011. It should be noted that naturally,scientifically and physically, breast milk provides the needed nutrition forthe baby to grow, and protects infants against some childhood killer diseasessuch as gastrointestinal infection, pneumonia and otitis media. It alsoenhances the reproductive health of the mother, proper child spacing, and rapidreturn of a mother to her previous weight and reduce the risk of having type 2diabetes (WHO, 2011).
Breast feeding is a convenient, hygienic andcost-effective practicethat improves the health of the babies. (Oche, Umar andAhmed, 2011). Breast milk contains antibodies and important nutrients requirefor the improvement of health and adequate development of the new born (Hajeeboy,Nguyen, Mannava and Mia (2014).
For some years now, there have been anincreasing interest in the encouragement of exclusive breastfeeding as the bestfeeding method for infants, this, to a significant extent has been inspired byscientific proofs on the significance of exclusive breast feeding in thereduction of infant morbidity and mortality. The World Health Organization(WHO) recommends that mothers should exclusively breastfeed the child for thefirst six months to attain best growth, development and general well being ofthe child. Furthermore, nutritious complementary foods and continuebreastfeeding should be given to the child of at least two years of age (WHO,2011). Irrespectiveof the myriad benefits of breast milk, and WHO’s recommendations onbreastfeeding, some mothers find it difficult to practice exclusivebreastfeeding due to factors such as breast related problems, a mother’sperception of producing insufficient milk (Cherop, Keverange-Ettyang andMbagaya, 2009), other factors include societal barriers like work, inadequatematernity leave, inadequate breastfeeding knowledge, lack of family support andencouragement from health care professionals (Thurman and Allen,2009).Globally, only 45% of infants less than six months of age are breastfedexclusively, despite the reported benefits of breastfeeding (United NationChildren Education Fund, 2016). A studyconducted by the United States Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the publishedresult in the journal of pediatrics as at 2016, indicates that only one in 200British women (0.
5%) engages in breastfeeding a year after giving birth. Thefigure is 23% in Germany and 27% in the United States.Recent analysis byCaiWardlaw and Brown (2010) on the global prevalence of exclusive breastfeedingacross 140 countries revealed an increase in the developing world from 33% in1995 to 39% in 2010 among infants aged 0-5months. Increase in West and CentralAfrica was more than twofold, that is from 12% in1995 to 28% in 2010. Therehave also been considerable progress from 35% in 1995 to 47 %
