Child-feeding practices and the influence of educational level and mass media in Costa Rica

This paper reports the results of a survey of child-feeding practices and related social phenomena in Costa Rica, a country representative of many maturing, less developed nations. The data were collected for use in developing a remedial nutrition programme and to provide a basis for a later evaluation of that programme.The results show that child-feeding practices are in need of improvement, particularly among mothers with relatively little formal education and especially during the first year of life and during periods of sickness. More mothers, regardless of their educational level, should be encouraged to breast-feed and to do so for longer periods. The data also showed a need to improve the general health environment in large families as a means of reducing infant mortality, especially when the mother is relatively uneducated. Radio is a particularly promising channel of health communication, especially for the relatively uneducated. Ways in which mass communications media could be used for health education should be explored.