Abstract
Breast milk is the natural first food for babies. It provides all the energy and nutrients that the infant needs for the first few months of life. It continues to provide up to half or more of the child's nutritional needs during the second half of the first year, and up to one third during the second year of life. Appropriate feeding is crucial for the healthy growth and development of the infant. Breastmilk promotes sensory and cognitive development, and protects the infant against infectious and chronic diseases. Exclusive breastfeeding reduces infant mortality due to common childhood illnesses such as diarrhea, pneumonia, and helps for a quicker recovery during illness.
Objectives:
1. To assess the knowledge of nursing mothers regarding the importance of exclusive breastfeeding.
2. To determine the effectiveness of health exhibition and video show on knowledge regarding exclusive breastfeeding among nursing mothers.
3. To find the association between knowledge scores of nursing mothers and selected demographic variables.
Methods: A pre experimental one group pre test post test design was adopted to accomplish the objectives of the study. A sample of 60 nursing mothers was selected by using convenient sampling technique. The knowledge of the nursing mothers on importance of exclusive breastfeeding was determined by administering structured questionnaire.
Results: Findings of the study revealed that the mean percentage of knowledge in the pre-test was 46.86% (mean: 14.06±3.519) and the mean percentage of post-test was 80.53% (mean: 24.16±2.985). Further effectiveness was tested using paired 't' test. The difference between pre-rest and post-test knowledge scores was found to be significant (t49=17.647, P<0.05).
Conclusion: From the study findings, it is revealed that there was significant increase in the knowledge scores of the school nursing mothers after health exhibition and video show. Therefore, it was concluded that planned teaching programme was highly effective in improving the knowledge of school nursing mothers regarding importance of exclusive breast feeding.
