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A Study of Feeding Problems in Infancy and Early Childhood in Ibadan, Nigeria
Author(s) -
Samuel Folake,
Ugochukwu Chimuanya,
Odukale Zainab
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.29.1_supplement.901.15
Subject(s) - neophobia , socioeconomic status , population , medicine , pediatrics , infant feeding , demography , environmental health , breast feeding , psychiatry , sociology
The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of feeding problems among children 6 to 24 months of age in Ibadan, Nigeria. Two hundred and seventy five mother‐child pairs were recruited from four selected Primary Health Centres in Ibadan North Local Government Area. A semi‐structured questionnaire was used to collect information on socioeconomic characteristics, feeding patterns and feeding behaviour of children as well as maternal perception and coping with children's feeding behaviour. Mean age of the children was14.1 ±5.6 months with 55.3% of these being females. On average, mothers were approximately 28 years of age (28.0±5.2 years), married (89.1%), with secondary school education (53.1%). The most common feeding problems observed among the participants were picky eating, food neophobia and intake of limited variety of food. Overall, 52% of the children had one or more feeding problems. Maternal coping strategies with their child's feeding behaviour were majorly use of rewards and force feeding. There exists a spectrum of feeding problems in infancy and childhood in this study population. There is need to provide infant and young child feeding support to mothers to prevent negative impacts of feeding problems on the nutrition and development of their children.