Abstract

According to the WHO, breast milk has many benefits to the infant as it is a main source of
energy and nutrients required by infants in the first 6 months of life for good health and
development. The study was a simple random sampling technique and was deployed to
obtain a sample of breastfeeding mothers, and was done by assigning them numbers and
selecting only those with a value that is a prime number. This was done every Tuesday and
Friday for one month as these were the days assigned for immunization and post-natal
services. In this study, it was found that the prevalence of EBF among lactating mothers with
infants aged 0–6 months attending Kotido General Hospital was low (36.2%). The majority of
others that practiced EBF were those between 18-25 (46%), those that were married also
practised more than the single and divorced, 64.5%. the majority of the mothers who had
secondary education practised EBF more than the uneducated and those with primary
education and the self-employed mothers did practice EBF more than the employed and the
peasant mothers. The majority of mothers 95/138 (95%) had a vaginal delivery, compared to
those who were done caesarian section, 43/138 (31.2%). A few of the mothers were HIV
positive 18/138 (13%) and the majority were negative 120/138 (87%). Multipara mothers were
more of the participants 115/138 (83.3%) compared to the nullipara 23/138 (16.7) and most
of the mothers did not attend antenatal care clinic 93/138 (67.4%), while those who attended
were only 45/138 (32.6%). Mothers coming for delivery should be encouraged on the
importance of attending antenatal care whenever they realize they are pregnant so that they
can be given information on the benefits of EBF. People employing lactating mothers should
be informed and advised to allow these mothers to breastfeed their children whenever need
be.