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Background

Infants and young children are at an increased risk of malnutrition from six months of age onwards, when breast milk alone is no longer sufficient to meet all their nutritional requirements and complementary feeding should be started. Hence this study was undertaken to assess the practices of complementary feeding.

Method

This hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted at two private hospitals-Dr TMA Pai Hospital Udupi and Dr TMA Pai Hospital Karkala and a public hospital, Regional Advanced Paediatric Care Centre, Mangalore, of coastal south India for a two-month period from August 2010 to October 2010. Two-hundred mothers of children between six months and two years attending the paediatric outpatient departments of the above-mentioned hospitals for growth monitoring, immunisation and minor illnesses such as upper respiratory tract infections were selected for the study. The …