Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Mother's Regarding Weaning in Rural Community of Lahore

Background: Birth of a child is of great importance in a family. Child health depends upon the fulfillment of nutritional needs that includes breast feeding and weaning. Weaning is the beginning of semisolid food in infant's diet who is consuming milk to meet his nutritional needs. Breast milk is a good source of nutrition for the first six months of child's life, but then again weaning is also essential as the child is in the growing stage. Methods: Descriptive analytical design was used in this study. The study was conducted in the area of Mohnalwal Lahore. All mothers in the reproductive age group 18-49 year were the source population. Data was collected through the administration of self-administered close ended questionnaire. Regression analysis through SPSS was applied to find out the association between variables. Results: The Majority (85.7%) of the mother's of the community were educated and only 14.3% of mothers had no formal education. 81.9% of the husbands were educated whereas 18% had no formal education. The main source of this knowledge was friends and family with 27.8% and Health worker / Hospitals with 21.8% whereas, 16.5% of the mother's had knowledge of weaning from TV and media and only 7 mothers had the knowledge of weaning Conclusions: Majority of the mothers had knowledge about weaning and was practicing correct weaning practices. Majority of the mothers started weaning at the recommended age of 4 to 6 months and the commonly used weaning diet was rice, rusk / biscuits or mashed fruits / veg. most of the mothers of Mohnalwal show a positive attitude towards weaning.