Abstract

Breast feeding is known to play key role in developing healthy child growth and health, unfortunately breastfeeding is not given consideration in many developing countries including Pakistan. This study aimed at determining the association of breastfeeding with prevalence of immunity and to determine association of infection with duration of feeding. We use convenient quantitative sampling method for participants of different age in different locations (i.e.) Sabzazar, Iqbal town, Garden town, Faisal town and Mansoora, Lahore Pakistan. According to the results, 83% mother’s breastfeed their child while 17% of the participants used formula feed. Regarding the feeding duration it was found to be 6 to 12 months. In both groups 37% children reported allergy, 32% reported fever, 27% reported chest infection; and 24.2% throat infection. There were 14.5% sinuses infection, 1.6% urinary tract infection and 32.8% children claimed stomach discomfort, influenza, tonsillitis and appendicitis after quitting the breastfeeding. According to our study 55.2% children were skinny while 44.8% remain healthy after quitting feed. Moreover, 57.6% mothers started weaning practices of their child after four to six months whereas 42.4% mothers started weaning after 6 months. Furthermore, 71% mothers used cow or formula milk with breastfeed. Overall, 30.6% children hospitalized once, 8.1% hospitalized twice, 14.5% hospitalized thrice or more and 46.8% never got into hospital in their lives.