Determinants of early initiation of breast feeding among mothers of children aged less than 24 months in Ethiopia: A community-based cross-sectional study.

Objective: This study aims to assess the prevalence of early initiation of breast feeding (EIBF) and associated factors among mothers having children less than 2 years of age in Ethiopia.

Design: Community-based cross-sectional study.

Setting: In this analysis, data from 2019 Ethiopia Mini Demographic and Health Survey (EMDHS) was used. The survey included all the nine regional states and two city administrations of Ethiopia.

Participants: We extracted data of 2054 mothers who had last-born children and those mothers who ever breast fed or still breast feeding their children during the survey from the 2019 EMDHS datasets.

Main Outcome Measures: We performed a two-stage multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression to identify individual and community-level determinants of EIBF. In the final model, variables with a p-value less than 5% and an adjusted OR with a 95% CI were reported as statistically significant variables with EIBF.

Result: The prevalence of EIBF among mothers having children aged 0-23 months was 73.56% (95% CI: 71.65% to 75.47%). Women who delivered at a health facility (adjusted OR (AOR)=1.98; 95% CI: 1.39 to 2.79) and have children with birth order second-fourth (AOR=1.76; 95% CI: 1.24 to 2.49) were more likely to initiate early breast feeding than their counterparts. On the other hand, women who gave birth by caesarean section (AOR=0.21; 95% CI: 0.13 to 0.33), had multiple births (AOR=0.35; 95% CI: 0.13 to 0.92) and had postnatal check-up (AOR=0.62; 95% CI: 0.44 to 0.91) were less likely to practise EIBF as compared with their counterparts. Region of residence of women was also significantly associated with EIBF.

Conclusion: In this study, the overall prevalence of EIBF was good. Place of delivery, mode of delivery, postnatal check-up, type of birth, birth order and region were factors significantly associated with EIBF. Therefore, government and stakeholders need to show commitment to improve access and utilisation of basic maternal health services to increase the practice of EIBF.