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A study of attitudes of practising doctors to infant feeding.


 The attitudes of 264 practitioners towards infant feeding were studied between January and December 1972. Information was collected by questionnaire technique. Of the 264 respondents, 200 were qualified and 50 were interns undergoing training at the local Medical College in Jabalpur, India and 14 were licentiates. Most qualified practitioners recommended breast feeding up to 6-24 months. An increasing tendency to recommend breast feeding for shorter periods (6-12 months only) and not exclusively beyond 6 months was apparent among practitioners qualifying more recently, i.e., after 1965. The majority of the practitioners recommended that breast feeding be initiated within 12-48 hours after birth, but licentiates advocated beginning breast feeding on the 2nd and 3rd days. The majority of practitioners recommended delayed supplementation with milk. Most of them preferred cow's milk because of "easy digestibility." Only 1/5 of the qualified practitioners advocated introduction of mixed feeds by the 3rd month of age. Interns stated that breast feeding should be continued up to 12 months, not exclusively, but supplemented with milk and solid feeds. The majority felt that breast feeding should be started within 6 hours. The advice on feeding and nutrition provided by graduate practicing doctors to patients was unsatisfactory. The feeding advice was based on prevailing cultural practices and tradition and not on sound scientific principles. This was the result of cultural taboos and prejudices rather than a lack of information. There was a marked difference between the attitude of doctors graduating recently and those who graduated before 1966. This seems to be due to the recent emergence of pediatrics as a discipline in medical colleges and therefore of its improved teaching.
