Unraveling Infant Feeding Practices Among Syrian Refugees in Türkiye: A Cross-Sectional Study

Refugee children are vulnerable in many respects. Determining their nutritional characteristics can guide the interventions that need to be developed. We aimed to determine the infant feeding characteristics of Syrian refugee mothers.

Syrian health care workers administered a survey file to Syrian mothers (n = 210) having a child under two years of age in 39 refugee health centers from five provinces. Analysis for association was conducted using the Chi-square test and logistic regression.

The mean (±SD) age was 27.1 ± 6.3 years for mothers and 11.0 ± 6.2 months for infants. Thirty percent of the children had prelacteal feeding, most frequently sugary water, formula, and anise. Of all, 69% continued to be breastfed; 86% in 0-5-month-old babies and 36% in 16-23-month-old infants. Of 16-23-month-old children, 40% had not eaten any fruit and vegetables rich in vitamin A before. Multivariate analysis revealed that prelacteal feeding was associated with bottle feeding and not having lactation counseling support in the prenatal and postnatal periods (AOR: 2.61, 95% CI: 1.35-5.10; AOR: 2.79, 95% CI: 1.33-5.84). Being still-breastfed was associated with younger age (0-5 months old) and not using feeding bottles (AOR: 3.85, 95% CI: 1.47-10.10; AOR: 2.66, 95% CI: 1.35-5.21, respectively).

Prelacteal feeding, sugary water consumption, bottle feeding, and limited dietary diversity were identified as significant nutritional issues among Syrian infants. In addition to lactation counseling, there is a need for culturally appropriate education on complementary feeding and healthy child nutrition for pregnant mothers and those with children under two years of age.