A Study on the Mothers' Knowledge and Practice about the Infant Weaning Diet

영유아 어머니의 이유식에 대한 지식정도 및 실태조사

The main purpose of this study was to present the basic materials that help the nursing of the infants and consultation of childcare by examinating the knowledge and practice of the mothers about the weaning diet. The data for this study was collected from 205 mothers with infants(6-36 months) who visited two hospitals or one university hospital in Seoul, who were living in one apartment Suwon area between July. 7. and September 10, 2000. The 57 questionnaires were used for collecting the data and SAS program was used to analyse the data. The results are as follows. 1. The items of low score in the result of the knowledge data were as follows. [Initial weaning time, the important nutritional problem in infant, considering factor during feeding, the relation of proper weaning food & age, the time of used by cup, to apply of proper spicies in weaning food, the time of completing weaning, the time of stopping weaning at abnormal sign, and the inappopriate reason of dry mixed powdered food (Sunsik) as a weaning food.] 2. Higher educated mothers presented more high score than lower educated mothers in the knowledge about the weaning. (p<0.05) 3. Before the weaning, more mothers were using the commercial milk (51.2%) than the breast milk (13.2%). 4. Mothers get the knowledge about the weaning from the infants care book of cook books(26.4%). 68% of mothers had not received any consulting service with regard to the weaning, 10.2% of them consulted Pediatrician about the weaning and 0.5% of them with nurse. 5. Most mothers began supplymentary food, from four to six months (65.4%). the ratio was about the same as the ratio of mothers who knEw the appropriate time for the introduction of supplymentary food(83.2%) 6. The main solid food was commercial food, not home-prepared food. 7. Higher educated mothers used home-prepared weaning food more often than lower educated mothers(P<0.05). 8. The used rate by spoon was 57.4%, but the rate of mother's knowledge data was 95.0%. 9. The time of completing the weaning was in 12-18 months(53.8%). It is similar to the mother's knowledge data(52.7%) Conclusion ; According to knowledge data, it turns out that most mothers know moderatly about the weaning (everage 60/100). However their knowledge and practice on the methods & procedures on the weaning were inadquate. Especially, most mothers did not consult with those qualification about the weaning. Therefore, the role of the nurse as a provider of information on the weaning should be emphasized with varied educational programs in many health care center.