Study on Weaning Practice of Infants in Chunchon Area, Kangwon-Do

강원도 춘천지역 유아의 이유실태에 관한 조사연구

The weaning practice of infants from 5 to 12 months of age in the area of Chunchon, Kangwon-do was studied. Subjects were divided into 2 groups depending on residential area, monthly family income and mother's educational level. Parents of group 1 (n=90) received higher education and more monthly family income than those of group 2(n=32). The family income was significantly higher in group 1 than in group 2. Mother's educational level has been markedly improved over 10 years, which affected the feeding methods before weaning in both groups(P<0.05). Group 1 appeared to be bottle-fed. Bottle-and mixed-feeding were mainly due to lack of breast milk. 95.6% of group 1 and 71.9% of group 2 started weaning before the age of 6 months and only 16.4% were completely finished regardless of the groups. Commercially prepared foods were used more than home-made for first given-supplementary food. 82.2% of group 1 received fruits and 84.4% of group 2 cookies/crackers as their main supplementary foods. As the motivation of onset of weaning, 'for baby's health and nutritional status' was the most common. These results demonstrate that there are distinct differences between these 2 groups in 1) the feeding methods prior to weaning, 2) time of onset of weaning, and 3) main supplementary foods, influenced by mother's educational level, economic purchasing power, or subjects birth order.