KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE OF MOTHERS ON EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT IN SLUM AREA OF DHAKA CITY

In the urban slum areas, poverty impact on early childhood development (ECD) and all aspects of life. ECD not only depends on access to food but also influenced by quality of care. Objective of this study is to explore the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of mothers on early childhood development in slum area of Dhaka city. A cross-sectional slum community based descriptive study was conducted among the slum dwelling 140 mothers who have a youngest child aged less than two years by using systematic random sampling during February to April, 2015. A large number of mothers living in slum area were lacking in knowledge of when basic developmental skills of infants and young children emerge. Most of the respondent <37.9% were between the ages of 26-30 years and about 33% of mothers did not work outside the home. About 70% mothers live in single family and 46% mothers had not formal education. About 30.7% of mothers had average knowledge and very negligible number of mothers had low knowledge (8%) on ECD. More than half of the mothers (53%) had knowledge about exclusive breast feeding and 51% mothers had knowledge about complementary feeding. Mothers' attitude towards ECD 62.9% was moderately favorable and 37.1% mothers had unfavorable attitude. According to the findings it was very much pathetic that none of them any adequate practice of mothers on ECD. More than 75% of mothers were practicing inadequately and 25% of mothers were practicing moderately inadequate on ECD. ECD was found to be associated with mother's education (P < 0.0001) but not with mother's age at birth, mother's occupation, or place of birth. There is a need for health care system interventions, family interventions, and public health education campaigns to promote early childhood development practices, especially in less educated women.