Abstract:
Background: World health organization recommends that children under age of 6 months should exclusively breastfed. Exclusive breastfeeding has a reduced risk of HIV transmission when compared to mixed feeding practice. Also it has the potential to prevent 11.6% of under-five deaths in developing countries. However, in Ethiopia only 59% of infants were exclusively breastfed.
Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess the magnitude of exclusive breast feeding practice and associated factors among HIV positive mothers attending ART at West Shoa Zone public health institutions, 2023.
Methods: Institution based cross sectional study design was carried out from March 10/2023 to Apri10/2023, on randomly selected 154 HIV positive mothers who had infants 6 to 12 months and attending ART at West Shoa Zone public health institutions. Simple random sampling method was employed to select study participants. The data was collected by using pre-tested interviewer administered structured questionnaire and check list. The collected data was checked for completeness, cleaned, and entered to Epidata version 4.6 and exported to SPSS version 20.0 computer software for further analysis. To describe the study variables descriptive statistics like frequency, mean and standard deviations were used. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression model were used to identify factors associated with exclusive breast feeding practice among HIV positive mothers. The association was declared at p-value < 0.05 by using adjusted odds ratio with 95% confidence interval.
Result: the magnitude of EBF was 81.1% at 95% CI (73.8, 87.0). On multivariate logistic regression analysis, having favorable attitude toward EBF [AOR=5.95, 95% CI (1.95, 18.15)], ANC visit [AOR=3.88, 95% CI (1.33, 11.36)], disclosure of HIV status [AOR=4.4, 95% CI (1.55, 12.52)], experiencing no breast problem [AOR=4.76, 95% CI (1.39, 16.32] were found to be significant positive predictors (p-value<0.05) of exclusive breast feeding practice.
Conclusion: majority of the study participant (81.1%) were practiced EBF. ANC visit, disclosure of HIV status, having no breast problem and favorable attitude toward breast feeding were significantly associated with EBF. So, increasing ANC utilization, supporting HIV positive mothers to disclose their HIV status, screening, early detection and management of breast problem is suggested.
