Factors associated with the increase in bottle feeding among children 0-5 months in Zambia.

The study aimed at determining factors associated with the increase in bottle feeding among children 0-5 months in Zambia. The Data used in the study was drawn from a cross sectional study design collected through Demographic Health Survey and was analyzed using Stata version 15.0. To investigate the association between the dependent variable and the independent variables, a simple binary logistic regression analysis was carried out. Then multivariate logistic regression analysis was used based on a significance level of p-value < 0.05. Thus the adjusted odds ratios were obtained by entering at once all the independent variables that were found to be significant in the bivariate analyses. The study was guided by the following research questions. a) What is the magnitude of bottle feeding? b) What are the socio-economic factors associated with bottle feeding? The study revealed that, 3.3% of women bottle-fed their children while 96.7% did not. The study found that women with higher education had the highest percentage of bottle feeding at 21.48% followed by the richest women at 13.92% and 11.45% for women that delivered by caesarean section. It was found that richest women had higher odds of bottle feeding than the poorest women with (AOR = 7.92; 95% CI: 3.967, 15.806). It was revealed that women who delivered by C-section were1.51times more likely to bottle feed than those who did not deliver by C-section. On the other hand, Women from rural areas were 0.66 times less likely to be bottle feed compared to those in urban areas. Therefore, the study recommends: i. The establishment of friendly breastfeeding workplace policies for working mothers. ii. The enactment of laws to allow for six months paid maternity leave to enable employed mothers to exclusively breastfeed. iii. For strict adherence to ARV treatment for breast feeding parents living with HIV. iv. The need for future research on the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving exclusive breast feeding.