EFFECTS OF SOCIO ECONOMIC STATUS AND TRADITIONAL REARING PRACTICES ON CHILDREN

Child rearing practice involves feeding practices and traditional methods of raising children at different stages of growth and development. Factors such as literacy and the socio-economic status of a family influence child rearing practices in India. Objective: To assess the socio-economic status of children and the effects of traditional parenting practices. Materials and Methods: A detailed study was conducted in rural Lucknow with 336 respondents with children aged 6 to 60 months, through visits to house and scheduled interview. The collected data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel. Results: In complementary feeding only cow & buffalo milk comprised more than 50% of the total respondents, which showed unawareness of the importance of complementary feeding. Most common child rearing practices includes both some good practices like exposure to early morning sunlight (62.5%), oil message (89.3%) and some wrong practices like use of amulets (89.3%) in the study population. 40.8% respondents were of upper lower class and only 2.1% & 8.6% were of th upper class & upper middle class respectively. Only 5.7% respondents were passed 12 or more, whereas 24.7 % respondents have no formal education. Conclusion: There are direct or underlying factors that need to be improved as earliest like education, socioeconomic status and complementary feeding, which are directly related with food availability, sufficient access of health services and improved child rearing practices.