Author
Adviser
Breastfeeding is the gold standard in infant and child feeding practices. The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life to ensure the provision of the necessary physiological needs of an infant which in turn will increase the probability of survival, decrease obesity rates and improve the overall health of mother and child. Sorsogon City has been reported to have sub-optimal EBF practices in comparison with the global target of 50% rate by 2025. In addition, minimal studies in exclusive breastfeeding was conducted in the Philippines . Therefore, this study aims to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices of mothers and its relation with selected sociodemographic factors of mothers and nutritional status of children. Descriptive statistics were utilized for the assessment of KAP while Phi, Fisher’s Exact test, Cramers V and Rank Biserial Analysis which was set at p > 0.05 significance value was used to assess the correlation between variables. For the sociodemographic factors, it was found that only 51% of the employed mothers were able to have 105 days of maternity leave and only 43% of them had lactation stations & pumping hours allotted. Results have also shown that there was a low prevalence of malnutrition in Barangay Bibincahan. It was also observed that majority had high knowledge (98.1%) and positive attitude (84%), however, practice of EBF remained sub-optimal (35.9%). Factors associated with the level of KAP were past experience with breastfeeding, employment status, maternity leave, and HH monthly income, hence nutrition intervention should be focused on these aspects. Furthermore, the study discovered that there was no significant association between the level of KAP on EBF and nutritional status.