IMPORTANCE OF EXCLUSIVE BREASTFEEDING ON THE HEALTH OF AN INFANT MOTHER (A CASE STUDY OF IREPODUN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OSUN STATE)

This study endavoured to the investigate importance of exclusive breastfeeding on the health of an infant mother. One hundred women in Irepodun Local Government area of Osun State were selected using stratified sampling procedure. The participants were classified as possessing high or low knowledge on breastfeeding, as well as being favouably or unfavourably disposed to breastfeeding practices: as measured personally developed with the help of lecturer by the researcher multiple aggression analysis, Pearson product moment correlation and the t-test were the statistical procedures employed to analyze the data. The results of the study showed that majority of the women were favourably disposed to breastfeeding of babies. However, the results also revealed that most of the women rated themselves as possessing low knowledge on requisition of fact on breastfeeding. Hence the need for Health Educators to make effort towards assisting women generally on requisition of facts on breastfeeding. No significant relationship was obtained between women attitude to indicating that both terms are not interchangeably used. In addition, a non-significant difference effect was also obtained on knowledge and important to indicate that religion, geographical background, educational attainment, may not be major variables considered in interpreting women knowledge and attitude to breastfeeding. Finally, the finding of this study that implies the involvement of health educators in matters of breastfeeding: and the need for the curriculum of their studies