INTRODUCTION:

Child is the most precious possession of mankind. The child represents the face of man which is always happy and always new. Every child has the right to possess good health. All children must enjoy good health. Any major deviation in the nutrient intake either in quality or in its quantity from its requirement growth and life span in number of ways particularly in the late period. Nutrition plays an important role in the physical, mental and emotional development of children.Good nutrition is the cornerstone for survival, health and development for current and succeeding generations.

Mother’s knowledge related to feeding of babies also reflects the nutritional status of the children¹. According to the recent studies and surveys conducted by UNICEF; nearly half of all deaths in children under age 5 are attributable to under nutrition. As evidenced from American journal of clinical nutrition; appropriate infant feeding practices results in better growth of infants and young children in rural Bangladesh².

According to the Global Strategy:

(2006), for Infant and Young Child Feeding malnutrition has been responsible, directly or indirectly, for 60% of the 10.9 million deaths annually among children under five. Well over two-thirds of these deaths, which are often associated with inappropriate feeding practices, occur during the first year of life. Recent scientific evidences reveal that malnutrition has been responsible for 60% of all deaths among children under five years annually. Over 2/3 of these deaths are often associated with inappropriate feeding practices and occurring during the first year of life. Only 35% of infants world-wide are exclusively breastfed during the first four months of life and complementary feeding begins either too early or too late with foods which are often nutritionally inadequate and unsafe³.

According to Puspha Barathi ,Karnataka (2005): Height increased with the advancement of age, as expected in both girls and boys of rural and urban areas in Raichur. The children of urban areas were taller than their rural counter parts. The mean height of urban boys, irrespective of age was more than girls of same location, but such differences were not seen among rural children. However, the children from both locations were shorter than the NCHS standards⁴.

The world health organization and the United Nations international children’s emergency fund (2004):

Conducted a prospective cohort study 1343 infants with monthly measurements on infant feeding practices and anthropometry at 17 occasions from birth to 24 months of age to assess the main outcomes of weight, length, anthropometric indexes and under nutrition. We created infant feeding scales relative to the infant feeding recommendations and modulated growth trajectories with use of multilevel models for change the result of this study reveals that mean birth weight was 2697, 30% weight <2500 g. Mean body weight at 12 and 24 months was7.9kg resp. more appropriate IFPs were associated with greater gain in weight and length during infancy⁵.

B O Ogunba,Uttar Pradesh, (2006):

Carried a crossectional study in randomly selected villages of the Bhojpuri block of barely. A total of 123 women’s who has delivered within last year were interviewed. The result depicted most has initiated breastfeeding within 24 hrs of delivery. About 15.4%of the infant did not receive colostrums and 22.4% of the infants were not fully breastfeed. Some of them used common prelacteal meals. About 47.2% respondents were not aware about the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding. The birth weight of the majority (78%) of new born was not measured. A majority (69.9%) of the mothers did not receive advice on child feeding. Multivariate logistic regression and new born care variables had no significant association with exclusive breastfeeding⁶.

OBJECTIVES:

· To assess the nutritional status of children.

· To assess the feeding practices of mothers.

· To find out the correlation between the nutritional status of children and feeding practices of mothers.

ASSUMPTION:

There may be a positive correlation between the nutritional status of children and feeding practices of mothers.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Research Approach:

The research approach used for this study is quantitative approach.

Research Design:

A Descriptive,Corelational Research Design will be adopted for this study.

Target Population:

Population for the study was Mothers with their children of age group 6 months – 3 yrs who were coming to the selected Hospital, Jammu.

Research Setting:

The study was conducted at selected Hospital,

Sample and Sampling Technique:

A Sample of present study was Mothers with their children of age group 6 months – 3 yrs who were coming to the selected Hospital, Jammu and Purposive sampling method is used to select the sample.

Criteria for Sample Selection:

Inclusion Criteria:

· Age between 6months-3 years

· Infants who were hospitalized

· Available at the time of data collection

· Mothers of children who were willing to participate in the study

· Both male and female children

Exclusion criteria:

· Physically handicapped children

· Mentally challenged children

· Critically ill children

VARIABLES:

Independent variables:

· Age of mother

· Duration of married life

· Number of children under 5 years of age

· Mother education

· Mother occupation

· Family income

· Religion

· Type of family

Dependent variables

· Nutritional status of children

· Feeding practices of mother

Tool and method of data collection:

PART I:

It consist of socio demographic variables of mother and children.

PART II:

Self Structured Tool to assess nutritional status of children by weight (Gomez classification), height (McLaurence classification) and mid arm circumference, measurement.

PART III:

It consists Self Structured check list to assess the feeding practices of mother at various hospital. It consists of 15 statement with score 1 for each positive answer and 0 for negative answer.

Criterion Measure:

Part – II:

To assess the nutritional status of child three pararmeters were assessed

1.height

2.weight

3.mid arm circumference

For assessing the nutritional status of children we have 3 parameters. Height and weight should be as per age and mid arm should not b less than 13 cm. Keep in mind the above conditions, investigator planned if any of the 2 pararmeter deviate from normal findings the child will be considered as undernourished and if all the parameters are normal the child can be considered as a healthy and normal one.

Table: 1

Condition	Status
If among the three any 1 parameters deviate from normal	Undernourished
If all parameters are normal	Healthty

Part-III Checklist Criterion Measure Criteron Measure to assess the Feeding Practices of Mother

Table :2

CRITERON MEASURE (scoring)	STATUS OF FEEDING PRACTICES
1-5	POOR
6-10	Average
11-15	Good

Pilot Study:

The pilot study was conducted during the month of September 2015 at PHC, kotbhalwal among 10 mothers and their Children to evaluate the effectiveness of the tool formulated and to find out the feasibility of conducting the main study.

Reliability of Tool:

Reliability was checked by split –half technique and calculated by Karl- Pearson’s co-efficient of co-relation method. the reliability was calculated as 0.7. so tool was highly reliable.

Data Collection Procedure :

The data collection was carried out for 10 days in a week of September. Data was collected from 50 mothers and children came to the selected hospitals of Jammu, India. Purposive sampling technique was used to select sample. Prior permission from the authority was sought. Data was collected by self structured tool to assess nutritional status of children by weight (Gomez classification), height (McLaurence classification) and mid arm circumference ,measurement, and check list to assess the feeding practices of mother at various hospital in Jammu, India.

Protection of Human Rights:

Research proposal as approved by the dissertation committee prior to the pilot and the main study permission was sought from the head of Pediatric health Nursing department of Bee Enn College of Nursing Jammu. A formal consent was obtained from the respondents of the study before administering the tool (check list).

Plan for Data Analysis:

The data was analyzed in terms of the objectives of the study using descriptive and inferential statistics. The plan of data analysis was follows:

· Organize the data in a master data sheet

· Frequency and percentage of socio demographic variables of mother

· Frequency and percentage of socio demographic variables of child

· Assessment of nutritional status

· Frequency and percentage of nutritional status of children

· Percentage distribution of level of feeding practices of mother

· Correlation of feeding practices of mother with the nutritional status of children with the help of karl pearson formula

MAJOR FINDINGS:

· According to Age, 7(14%) Majority of Mothers belonged to age group of 18-24yrs.

· As per Religion,40(80%) Majority of sample was Hindu.

· As per type of habitat,40(80%) of Mothers live in rural area and 10(20%) live in urban area.

· As per type of family,14(28%) belong to nuclear family and 36(72%) belong to joint families.

· As per occupation all the beneficiaries 50(100%) were unskilled and are housewifes.

· According to Education, 17(34%) Most of the mothers were having middle school and 2(4%) Mothers were post graduate.

· It was assessed that out of 50, maximum 37 (74%) of children had healthy nutritional status, and minimum 13(26%) of children had undernourished nutritional status of children .

· Results indicated that out of 50, maximum 40 (80%) Mothers had Good level of feeding practices, followed by 8 (16) Mothers followed average feeding practice and minimum 2(4%) have poor level of feeding practices.

REFRENCES:

1. Victorfrank;www.quotegarden.com/change.html/welcome to the quote garden, 17 May 2011.

2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19464129

3. Anithajohn.Womenhood.www.sanagynivf.com/women,http://14.139.159.4:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/3050/1/.htm.

4. Puspha Barathi ;A study on height increased with the advancement of age, as expected in both girls and boys of rural and urban areas in Raichur; Karnataka ; 2005.

5. WHO; conducted a prospective cohort study 1343 infants with monthly measurements on infant feeding practices and anthropometry; Available at www.ncbi.gov/pubmed/16476346;2004.

6. B O Ogunba,Uttar Pradesh; A crossectional study to assess feeding practices; Modern Journal of Research ; vol 8; 2006.

Received on 31.08.2016 Modified on 25.09.2016

Int. J. Nur. Edu. and Research. 2017; 5(1): 51-54.

DOI: 10.5958/2454-2660.2017.00011.4