IYCF Practices, Beliefs, and Influences in Tigray ... - Alive & Thrive

At the same time, the program’s activities may help families take better advantage of available foods.
Program planners will want to identify interventions and messages that will resonate with mothers and
enable them to adopt improved practices even in the face of entrenched traditions or misconceptions.
5.2 Community and family influences on mothers’ feeding practices
The potential role of family influentials, HEWs, and VCHPs in providing IYCF support was also
identified. Mothers get IYCF support from family influentials such as in-laws, grandmothers, fathers,
community leaders, and traditional birth attendants. It was made clear that some mothers have changed
their practices after receiving advice on child feeding. On the other hand, responses obtained from FGD
participants were not always in line with standard IYCF recommendations. The faulty IYCF practices
mentioned earlier are most often associated with advice from in-laws or community elders. While
support provided from outside the family to a mother with a new baby is important, it is also necessary
to shift the long-standing beliefs of family influentials.
HEW supervisors sensed noticeable improvements in the areas of environmental sanitation through
latrine use, family planning, immunization coverage, bed net utilization, prevention and control of
communicable diseases, awareness of recommended child feeding practices, pregnancy follow-up and
delivery services, and HIV testing services leading to a decreased disease burden. Still, the problem of
food insecurity throughout the communities was raised by study participants as a substantial obstacle to
optimum IYCF practices.
Implications. The study’s findings confirm that any intervention aimed at changing traditional
practices related to child feeding must engage the family and community members who influence
individual mothers’ choices. These influentials can play a supportive role if they are brought on board
with new ideas, and just as importantly to keep in mind, can interfere with promotion of recommended
practices when they offer incorrect information or outmoded beliefs.
As this study shows, how the community’s young children are nourished is the product of generations of
tradition, and many traditional feeding practices are linked to deeply-held cultural and even spiritual
beliefs.
5.3 HEW and VCHP capacities
This study looked at perceptions of staff and volunteer capacity from their own point of view and from
the point of view of the families they serve. Capacity includes both knowledge of recommended IYCF
practices and the skills needed to teach, train, or counsel.
Though all of the HEWs involved in this study had received short-term training in community-based
nutrition (CBN), outpatient therapeutic program (OTP), and/or infant, young child, and maternal
nutrition, they indicated their need for a focused IYCF training. Much of the training they have received
addresses treatment of malnutrition and not prevention, which is A&T’s focus. Most of the HEWs
underscored that they have some knowledge, but they need refresher courses to help them do their work
effectively, especially on the complementary feeding aspect. The findings from this study reveal that
HEWs have reasonably better knowledge in the area of breastfeeding than in complementary feeding.
Regarding their own knowledge and skills related to counseling, almost all of the HEWs are keen to
improve those skills.
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