Practice of breastfeeding and Immunisation in a periurban community in Pakistan.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the practice of breastfeeding and immunisation in a peri-urban community and correlate it with maternal care during pregnancy of the index child.

METHODS: This community-based, cross-sectional survey was conducted at Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University and Shifa College of Medicine, Islamabad, Pakistan, from June 2014 to January 2016, using a self-generated questionnaire. Systemic random sampling method was used to collect data. SPSS 21 was used to analyse the data and to find associations between maternal care and practices of breastfeeding.

RESULTS: There were 1,275 participants in the study. The mean age of the participants was 31.61±8.026 years and the mean number of family members was 7.28±3.42. Overall, 1,121(87.9%) women had exclusively breastfed all their children while 906(71.1%) women had their children fully vaccinated. The mean duration of exclusive breastfeeding was 5.30±1.31 months while the mean duration of mixed breastfeeding was 16.70±8.62 months. Mothers who were given prenatal care were 2.60 and 2.91 times more likely to do exclusive breastfeeding and immunisation, respectively, compared to women who were not given prenatal care (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: There is a dire need to focus more on routine services compared to massive immunisation and breastfeeding campaigns.