Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to assess young child feeding practices of women who earn
their living by working in common market places in Morogoro Municipality and identify
factors influencing adoption of recommended practices of feeding children aged 0-24
months. A sample of 90 such women was selected, either randomly or in some cases by
convenience, and interviewed using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were
performed and multiple regression analysis at significance level of P ≤ 0.05 was used. The
data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The
findings revealed that only about a half of the interviewed women (51.1%) had practiced
exclusive breastfeeding as required (the first six months of a child). On the other hand,
common aspects of responsive feeding, which include encouraging child to breastfeed and
use of eye-to-eye contacts during feeding were used by almost all the sampled women (for
more than 96% each). The study also revealed that almost two thirds of the respondents
(62.2%) had good knowledge about exclusive breastfeeding and about forty percent
(44.4%) had good knowledge about responsive feeding. Guided by the theory of planned
behaviour (TPB), the analysis showed that almost seventy percent of the respondents
intended to exclusively breastfeed their babies or apply the various aspects of responsive
feeding that were tested. The findings also revealed that women’s subjective norms was a
significant factor in the adoption of exclusive breastfeeding (p = 0.043), whereas women’s
attitude was significant for adoption of responsive feeding (p = 0.024). The subjective
norms include influence of the people surrounding these women such as parents and
friends or other relatives. Nutrition education programmes should be put in place by
government and Development Partners targeting such special vulnerable group, who are
very often left out in the normal implemented interventions. Other special initiatives can
also include provision of baby care facilities in those market places.
