The Journal of

Background: Exclusively breast-fed up to six months is the best status for children providing them with physical, physiological and mental needs and causes decreasing some infections among them. This is less addressed in research up to now. The study thus aimed to determine prevalence of exclusive breast feeding up to six months and some of its related factors in Ardakan.

Methods: In a descriptive, cross-sectional study in July 2011,a total number of 413, 6-12 months children from 4 urban health care centers of Ardakan were included in the study through census. Data were collected using a researcher-designed questionnaire including demographic information and questions about child nutrition status in the first six months of life. All of the eligible mothers participated in the study voluntarily.

Results: Of the studied children 50.8% were male and 49.2% were female. Exclusive breast feeding rate up to six months was 6.1% and exclusive breast feeding with hot water rate was 34.6%. Duration mean of the former was 3.49± 2.22 months and the latter 4.55± 1.79 months. There was a significant relationship between exclusive breast feeding and growth stop and growth decline. The most important reported barriers for exclusive breast feeding were the child unknown crying and mothers' perceived insufficiency of their milk.

Conclusion: Exclusive breast feeding rate is low and most mothers do not know enough about sufficiency of mothers' breast milk for their children up to six months and they report some unacceptable reasons for stopping breast feeding which indicates their knowledge level in this area is low. Moreover, literate people are more successful in exclusive breast feeding than low literate people. All of the above points indicates that increasing mother's knowledge in this domain is necessary.