Abstract:
Effective infant feeding makes an important contribution to the good health and development of children with effects reflecting up to adulthood. Among many cultures and diverse populations traditionally, infants are fed through breast milk and later given complementary foods while continuing with breastfeeding. Mother to child transmission is a well established mode of HIV transmission and infection may occur during pregnancy, labour, delivery and breastfeeding. The objective of this study was therefore to determine the awareness, attitude and practices of postnatal mothers attending Mbagathi District Hospital on infant feeding options for HIV positive mothers. This was a descriptive cross-sectional hospital based study that utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods. It was conducted among postnatal mothers attending the hospitals Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition clinics. Systematic sampling was used to select the participants and data was collected using structured questionnaire and key informant interviews. Quantitative data was analyzed using statistical computer software (SPSS version 16.0) while transcripts from interviews were manually analysed based on themes developed from the study objectives and are presented verbatim. A total of 384 respondents were interviewed for a period of three months. Overall 45.5% of the respondents were adequately aware of the infant feeding options for HIV+ mothers, 83.9% had a positive attitude towards the infant feeding options for HIV+ mothers and 85.9% applied appropriate feeding option for age. The predictors of adequate awareness of recommended feeding for infants were number of births (p≤0.001) and level of education attained (p≤0.001) while predictors of appropriate attitude towards recommended feeding for infants born to HIV+ mothers were religion (p=0.010) and education (p=0.013). Number of births was the only socio-demographic characteristic (p=0.015) having an association with feeding practice. In conclusion, most postnatal mothers were aware of the infant feeding options for HIV positive mothers they embraced well the infant feeding options, though among the younger mothers the findings showed that they were not much concerned with the infant feeding options. The younger mothers need encouragement to understand and embrace awareness of the Recommended Infant Feeding Options in both HIV+ and HIV-.