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Journal of Statistics Applications & Probability

Author Country (or Countries)

India

Abstract

Exclusive breastfeeding is an eminent public health tool for primary prevention of child morbidity and mortality. Infant feeding practices have a major role in determining the nutritional status of child.Malnutrition has been responsible directly or indirectly for 60 percent of 10.9 million deaths annually among children under 5 years. Over two-third of these deaths are associated with inappropriate feeding practices occur during the first year of life. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of exclusive breastfeeding on nutritional status of child in the Empowered Action Group (EAG) states of India. The eight EAG states constitute about half of India’s population and fall behind in demographic and socioeconomic indicators. The data from NFHS-3 is used. Bi-variate and multi-nomial analyses are used to establish the relationship between the two dependent variables. Height-for-age, weight-for-age and weight-for-height are analyzed with respect to background characteristics. Results indicate that there is negative relationship between wealth quintile and children getting exclusive breastfed. Severity of stunting, wasting and underweight shows a decreasing trend as the children are exclusive breastfed. Severity of undernourishment increases as birth order increases and decreases as income level rises. This implies that exclusive breastfeeding has a significant role in nutritional status of child.

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