摘要：Background: Early initiation of complementary feeding which was widely documented in many countries exposed infants to increased risk of morbidity and mortality. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of early initiation of complementary feeding and associated factors in Bishoftu Town, Oromia, Ethiopia. Methods: An institutional based cross-sectional study design was conducted from January-February 2015 among 422 mothers of infant aged less than 6 months selected from four public health facilities. Prevalence of early initiation of complementary feeding was determined using “recall since birth” method. Multi-variable logistic regression analysis was employed to control confounders in determining association between early initiation of complementary feeding and selected independent variables. Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR), 95% Confidence Interval (CI) and P < 0.05 were used to claim statistical significance. Results: The prevalence of early initiation of complementary feeding was 32.9% (137/416, 95% CI: 28.0, 37.0). The odd of mothers with delayed initiation of Breastfeeding was 4.76 times higher to expose their child to early complementary feeding than women who initiated breastfeeding within one hour after delivery with AOR 4.76 (95% CI; 2.48-9.13, P value < 0.001). This finding was a little higher than estimates of other studies. The odds of house wife mothers and mothers who delivered at health institution had 64% and 74% lower risk to early initiate complementary feeding than employed and home delivered mothers with AOR 0.34 (95% CI; 0.21, 0.55) and AOR 0.26 (95% CI; 0.08, 0.89), respectively. The odd of mothers who lacked knowledge on the duration of optimum breastfeeding duration was 3.91 times higher to practice early initiation of complementary feeding than who correctly knew it with AOR 3.91 (95%; 2.33, 6.54, P-value 0.001). Conclusions: Almost one third of mothers initiated early initiation of complementary feeding at four months of their child’s age. Encouraging all mothers to initiate breastfeeding within an hour, providing counseling service on recommended six-month duration of exclusive breastfeeding was recommended.
