Infant and Young Child Feeding Practices and Associated Factors Among Children Aged 0-23 Months in Assayita District Afar Region Ethiopia

Achieving optimum Infant and young child feeding practices is the major challenge in developed and developing countries. Globally, about 40% of under two years age deaths are attributed to inappropriate infant and young child feeding practices. In Ethiopia, a wide range of inappropriate infant and young child feeding practices were documented. The study was aimed to assess infant and young child feeding practice and its associated factors among children aged 0-23 months in Assayita districts, Afar region, Ethiopia, 2018. A Community based cross-sectional study was applied from January1-30/2018 among 620 study participants. A pre tested structured questioner was used to collect data. After data get collected it was cleaned and entered using EPI-Data version-3.02 and exported to SPSS version-20 for further analysis. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to measure the strength of association between explanatory variables and outcome variable. Variables with p<0.25 on univariable logistic regression analysis were candidates for multivariable logistic regression analysis and statistical significance was declared at P-value <0.05 and 95% CI. In this study the prevalence of appropriate infant and young child feeding practice was 9.2% (95% CI. 7.1–11.6), children from mothers with secondary education (AOR=4.44, 95% CI (1.84, 10.7), delivered at health facilities (AOR=2.55, 95% CI (1.32, 4.93), had Ante Natal Care follow-up (AOR=4.2, 95% CI (2.2, 8.7), and heard information about Infant and young child feeding (AOR=4.38, 95% CI (1.97, 9.5) were predictors of appropriate Infant and young child feeding practice at 95% CI. Promoting institutional delivery, promoting Ante Natal Care service, maternal education and increasing awareness on infant and young child feeding practice should be implemented.