Assessment of Prevelance and Determinants of Exclusive Breastfeeding among Mothers with Infants Aged under Six Months in Wadajir District, Banadir Region, Somalia

Introduction: The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that include ending hunger and improving nutrition, preventing child mortality, and lowering the risk of non-communicable diseases, and promoting cognitive development and education are among the many that breastfeeding is essential to achieving including SDG 2, ending hunger and improving nutrition; SDG 3, preventing child mortality. By 2025, the World Health Organization's (WHO) global nutrition targets to increase at least 50% of infants under six months old to exclusively breastfeed (EBF).

Objective: To assess knowledge, determinants and measure prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding among infants aged below six months in Wadajir district, Banadir region- Somalia.

Methodology: A hospital-based cross-sectional study design was applied. Systematic sampling method was used to include mothers with infants aged less than 6 months in search of healthcare in Wadajir health center-mother and child health clinic. Study period was August to September 2023. Close ended structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Data was entered into SPSS, multiple analysis was used to correlate independent variables like cultural barriers, maternal barriers, policy barriers, health system barriers with dependent variable of exclusive breastfeeding.

Results: The study population comprised 353 mothers; about 65% were aged 25 to 35 years and 76% of them were housewives. The study established that 65% of mothers in Wadajir district who visited the health facility during study period were practicing exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months. On Knowledge, More than half (59%) of the mothers were not aware of the duration of EBF and there was a correlation between EBF and mother education level (P=0.213). there was no relationship between maternal determinants of EBF and low rates of EBF. There was statistically significant correlation (P=0.199) between EBF and the number of pregnancies. Because of having frequent and close pregnancy outweigh EBF and overall breastfeeding, and infant care.

Conclusion: There is poor knowledge on exclusive breastfeeding among mothers in Wadajir district, Somalia. Maternal education, the number of children, the place of delivery, and the educational attainment were all found to be related to exclusive breastfeeding.