التحليل المكاني لظاهرة الرضاعة الطبيعية ومستقبلها في محافظة صلاح الدين 2023- 2033

Abstract

         Breastfeeding is an important phenomenon because it is a natural biological function that provides the ideal food for the infant through the nursing mother, especially during the first months of his life and during other stages that may reach 24 months. In previous decades, it was the only and vital way to feed children. This phenomenon has declined during previous decades until today in Salah al-Din Governorate. The research relied on some official statistics with field study data, and the research reached several results, including that breastfeeding rates in the governorate are low and reached 14.8% of the total number of women who gave birth to children in 2023, and it is higher in rural areas than in urban areas and reached 17.6%  compared to 11.7% in urban areas. A number of main variables were relied upon, namely the mother's education level, place of residence according to the environment (urban-rural), the mother's desire to have another child, the lack of health education for the family and the mother, the family's standard of living and the mother's health, and the presence of more than one wife in the family. A number of proposals were put forward to address this problem.