Feeding practices and nutritional status of children aged 6 to 59 months at the Yirimadio’s community health center, Bamako

Abstract

Introduction: The aim of our study was to assess the feeding practices of mothers and the nutritional status of children aged 6 to 59 months at the Yirimadio CSCOM.
Methods: A descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study with prospective data collection took place in September 2022 and involved children aged 6 to 59 months at the Yirimadio CSCOM. We used the simple random sampling survey method. Information was collected during individual interviews for dietary practices and to assess nutritional status, we used Shakir's band, Short's height gauge and electronic mother-child scales. The chi-square test of independence was used at the 5% threshold to measure the links between dietary practices and nutritional status.  Results: In our study, 52.5% of the 101 mothers of children aged 6-59 months were female, and 12.9% of the children were aged 10-12 months. Among the children, 53.5% were put to the breast early in life, 60.4% of the mothers exclusively breastfed, and supplementary foods were introduced between 6 and 12 months of age in 69.3% of cases.  Conclusion: The results of this study show that mothers' feeding practices are encouraging, and at the same time likely to influence the nutritional status of children aged 6 to 59 months in the Yirimadio CSCOM.