Abstract:

Introduction: Exclusive breastfeeding for infants aged less than 6months is essential for growth and development, however the breast milk alone is not adequate to meet the nutrition needs of the infant after age of 6months, indicating the need to introduce complementary feeding. Our aim was to determine the practice and factors associated with breastfeeding and complementary breastfeeding among women at Sengerema district hospital.

Methodology: This was a cross sectional study that was conducted at Sengerema district hospital. Data were collected using a pre-tested Swahili questionnaire. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire by interviewing participants on their practice of breastfeeding and complementary feeding. The questionnaire was prepared in English and translated into Swahili. The information obtained was then be analyzed using SPSS computer software version 23.0

Results: A total of 249 participants were included in this study. The mean age was 28 ± 5 years. All participants had ever breastfed their children. Majority of participants breastfed their baby for 1 hour after birth. More than three-quarter of the participants gave their child breastmilk without other food for 3-6 months. of the babies were fed other food other than breastmilk, among those 55% of them were fed cow’s milk and 6.9% were fed cow’s milk and mashed potatoes. The prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding was 73.9%. The reason for majority of the participants for not breastfeeding was not having enough milk . We found no association between age, occupation, maternal education and Marital status with breastfeeding

Conclusion: Health promotion of breastfeeding and focusing on factors that affecting this practice in Sengerema is highly warranted. We also recommended further studies so as to explore further barriers to exclusive breastfeeding among mothers