الفهرس 
HUMAN MIILKOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
Abstract
Lactation is a normal physiological process that begins soon after parturition during which the mother starts nourishing her infant. To fulfill this function she should have additional nutritional stores to nourish the rapidly growing baby. Promoting the positive nutritional status of women throughout the postpartum period will improve maternal health and wellbeing of mothers and infants
The aim of this study was to assess the nutritional knowledge and nutrient intake of the lactating women. The study targeted lactating women who were breastfeeding their infants on demand after delivery. One hundred and fifty one breast feeding mothers attending the breastfeeding clinic at the Center for Social and Preventive Medicine (CSPM) of Abu El Reish Children’s hospital were randomly included.
The tools of the presented study were: Interview questionnaires:
There were five types of questionnaire were used Socio-bio Demographic Questionnaire (S-BDQ); this provided information on factors relevant to lactating woman regarding the environment she lived in, Nutritional knowledge; this provided information on the nutrition knowledge of the women. The Quantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire (QFFQ); this provided information on the eating pattern and intake, the Hunger Scale; provided information on the food availability and the consumption by the women and their households, 24-hr Recall Questionnaire (24-H-RQ); this provided information on the types of foods consumed at mealtimes and between meals, portion sizes over the past twenty four hours, and Anthropometric Measures: weight and height were measured and then BMI was calculated for each participant.
Results of this study revealed that:.
The BMI of the studied participants showed that overweight and obesity were more prevalent among the studied participants (26.5%, 47.7% respectively) compared to (25.8%) who were normal weight.
More than the half of the participants had earned 1001-3000L.E monthly income 52.3% and 49.7% of them spent on food per week 100-200 L.E.
35.8% of the lactating mothers visited an outpatient clinic in the last one month and 4.6% were hospitalized in past month.14.6% only of the participants in the study group were suffering from any chronic disease and were following a special diet.
Majority of the participants in the study group 77.5% had a very good nutritional knowledge and 22.5% had good nutritional knowledge. 76.2% of the lactating women were at risk of hunger and 23.8% of them were food secure.
The mean intake of vitamin A, vitamin B12, and vitamin B2 that was consumed by the participants was below 2/3 of the WHO recommendations.
51% of the participants consumed 75-100% of the recommended daily allowances from calories, 89.4 of the lactating mothers in the study group consumed > 100% from carbohydrates and 55.1% of them consumed >100% of the recommended daily allowances from protein.
34.7% of the participants in the study group consumed 50-75% of the recommended daily allowances from calcium, 91.4% of them consumed >100% from iron, while 43% of the participants consumed 75-100% of the recommended daily allowances from zinc.
76.2% of the lactating women in the study group consumed < 50% of the daily recommended allowances from vitamin A, 80% consumed < 50% from vitamin D.
The main observed nutritional practices before counseling were high consumption of bread, rice, butter, sugar, halawa, tea and cola. Furthermore there was low consumption of food containing high biological value proteins as poultry, fish, liver, egg, milk, and yogurt. Additionally, there was low consumption of split peas, dry beans, lentils, raw vegetables and fruits.
Recommendations:
• Nutrition education for mothers should be provided in the all health facilities and PHC centers any dealing with breastfeeding mothers.
• Increase awareness to the lactating mother’s quality of diet through mass media.
• Food fortification of the commonly consumed foods like bread, bean product and rice which were found to be the most common foods in this study.