Does Mother's Nutritional Knowledge Level Affect Anthropometric Measurements of 0-2 Year Old Infants?

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between maternal nutritional knowledge and anthropometric indices in children under 2 years of age. The Infant Nutrition Attitude Scale (IOWA) was administered to all participated mothers. The IOWA was developed to assess women's attitudes toward breastfeeding and their choice of infant feeding method. The IOWA score of mothers who fed their infants only formula and only complementary foods was found to be statistically significantly lower than the IOWA score of mothers who breastfed (p < .05). In summary, the higher the IOWA score, the longer the duration of breastfeeding. No statistically significant correlation was found between the IOWA and infants' anthropometric measurements (p > .05)