The objective of this study was to describe the relationship between the patterns, senses, and knowledge’s on infant feeding, and various maternal and socioeconomic characteristics. For this purpose, 511 mothers who had infant aged below 24 months old were surveyed in a part of Seoul, Ansung Gun and Jungwon Gun.
The results of this study were summarized as follows:
1. The proportion of mothers who were not experienced in breast-feeding on their infants were 36.4% in Seoul, 9.7% in Ansung, and 1.5% in Jungwon, and the most common reasons were “insufficiency of breast milk" and "mother´s job".
The mothers who were in breast-feeding at the time of the survey were 21.8% in Seoul, 53.0% in -Ansung and 84.6% in Jungwon. The most common reasons for breast-feeding were "nutritional value of breast milk" and "baby´s health" "immunity in breast milk" in Seoul area and "economical reason" in rural areas were also common reasons.
In Seoul, 46.8% of mothers stopped the breast-feeding before 3 months, but in rural 17.4%-22. 2% of mothers stopped before 3 months and 31.9-44.5% continued breast-feeding until 13^d8months. The most common reasons for stopping the breast-feeding were "breast milk no longer covers the growth of infant" and "insufficiency of breast milk".
For total subjects 31.4% of the mothers in Seoul, 74.1% in Ansung and 83.1% in Jungwon performed breast-feeding, and 54.0% in Seoul, 15.7% in Ansung and 4.6% in Jungwon prformed bottle-feeding.
2 . The duration of lactation was shortened as the educational status of mothers was increased in a1L areas. The mothers with a job stopped lactation earlier than those without job, but the trend toward the bottle-feeding in mothers without job was higher in Seoul than rural areas.
3. In Seoul, 45.7% of mothers preferred 7^?12 months for the ideal duration of lactation. In Ansung and Jungwon, 49.2--M.4 of mothers -preferred 13-18 months. The ideal duration were shortened as the maternal education was increased in all areas.
55.5 % of the mothers in, Seoul: answered, "breast milk is best method for infant feeding", and iii Ansung and Jungwon the proportion was over 70%. It seems that the educational status of mothers does not affect the proportion on breast-feeding. In Seoul, 35.6%of mothers answered that the mixed-feeding from the beginning is best.
4. Books and magazines appeared to have been an important source of information on infant feeding in highly educated mothers, on the other; hand in most of the rural areas the mothers were more affected by the masscom.
|