A Comparative Study of infant and young child feeding practices (IYCF) and nutritional status under two years of age

Background: Infant and young child feeding is a key area to improve child survival and promote healthy growth and development. NFHS-4 2015-16 reveals improvement in EBF from 46.4% (NFHS-3) to 54.9% in India. Improvement is less in urban area (46.8%) as compared to rural area (54.2%). NFHS 4 reveals decline in EBF from 51.3% (NFHS-3) to 41.6% in Uttar Pradesh. Aims & Objectives: To compare the finding of feeding practices and nutritional status between urban and rural children. Settings and Design: Conducted in the field practice areas of Rural and Urban Health training centre of Muzaffarnagar Medical College. A list of all the registered children up to two years of age was obtained. Period of study was one year. Methods and Material: The sample size calculated using prevalence for urban and rural at 12% permissible error of P. The total sample size (250+ 660) 910 was taken. Statistical analysis used: The data analysed using StatCalc version 8.2.2 software. Results: 43.6% of the children were being exclusively breastfed in rural areas vis-a-vis 29.8% in urban areas. 40.4% were timely fed and 24% were late in starting complementary feeding. Appropriate caloric intake was seen only in 37.9% children. Maximum appropriate intake was there in 0-6 month's children (62.8%) and this progressively decreased as the age increased, to 40.5%, 17.1% at 6-12 month's, 12-24 months respectively. Thus age was significantly associated with mean deficiency of calories (p<0.0001). Conclusions: Age of the child was found to be associated with mean deficiency of calories. 33.3% of children fell in the category of wasting and 48.6% of children were stunted.