Data from: Poor infant and young child feeding practices and sources of caregivers’ feeding knowledge in rural Hebei Province, China: findings from a cross-sectional survey

Objectives: To obtain a general overview of infant and young child feeding practices in one rural county in China and identify current delivery channels and challenges. Design: A cross-sectional study. Setting: A rural county, Zhao County, in Hebei Province, China. Participants: Ten clusters were first selected within each township (16 townships in total) with Proportional to Population Size sampling. In each cluster, a name list was used to select 13 children aged 0-23 months. We interviewed caregivers of all the selected children. Primary and secondary outcomes measures: Coverage of infant feeding practices, reasons for low coverage of infant feeding practices, and current delivery channels of infant feeding practices. Results Findings from our survey indicated that infant feeding practices were poor. Early initiation of breastfeeding was only 22.4%, exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months was less than 10%, and continued breastfeeding up to the age of two was just 38.2%. Only 32.5% of children were given iron-rich or iron-fortified foods. The leading sources of infant feeding information were family members, neighbors, friends and popular media. Only around 20% of the information came from health facilities and nearly none came from communities. Household property data showed that 99.9% of households owned televisions and 99.4% owned mobile phones. In addition, 61.2% of the households owned computers, with 54.8% having access to the internet. Conclusions Few caregivers of children in Zhao County received feeding information during pregnancy and after delivery. Moreover, their feeding knowledge and practices were poor. Multi-channel approaches, delivered through health facilities, community resources, popular media, the internet and mobile phones, hold potential to improve infant feeding practices and should be explored in future studies.研究目标：全面掌握中国某农村县域的婴幼儿喂养行为现状，明确当前的喂养信息传播渠道与现存挑战。 研究设计：横断面研究（cross-sectional study）。 研究地点：中国河北省赵县农村县域。 研究对象：首先采用按人口规模比例抽样（Proportional to Population Size sampling）法，在全县16个乡镇中各抽取10个抽样群；每个抽样群内，通过名单抽样法选取13名0~23月龄的婴幼儿，并对其照护者开展访谈。 主要与次要结局指标：婴幼儿喂养行为覆盖率、婴幼儿喂养行为覆盖率偏低的原因，以及当前婴幼儿喂养信息的传播渠道。 研究结果：本次调查结果显示，当地婴幼儿喂养行为现状欠佳。母乳喂养早期启动率仅为22.4%；6月龄内纯母乳喂养率不足10%；持续母乳喂养至2岁的比例仅为38.2%。仅32.5%的婴幼儿获得了富铁或强化铁辅食。婴幼儿喂养信息的主要来源为家庭成员、邻里、亲友及大众媒体；仅约20%的信息来源于医疗卫生机构，几乎无社区渠道提供相关喂养信息。家庭资产数据显示，99.9%的家庭拥有电视机，99.4%的家庭拥有移动电话；此外，61.2%的家庭拥有电脑，其中54.8%可接入互联网。 研究结论：赵县婴幼儿照护者在孕期及产后极少获得喂养相关指导信息，其喂养知识储备与实际喂养行为均存在不足。通过医疗卫生机构、社区资源、大众媒体、互联网及移动电话等多渠道开展喂养宣教工作，具备改善当地婴幼儿喂养行为的潜力，未来可对此展开进一步研究与探索。