Knowledge, perception and child care practices among adolescent mothers in Ibadan Metropolis, Nigeria

Introduction. There is little information regarding childcare practices among adolescent mothers in the study areas. Aim. This study was aimed at investigating knowledge, perception and childcare practices among adolescent mothers. Material and methods. A descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted on randomly select 382 adolescent mothers. A validated semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data, which were analysed using, descriptive and multivariate analyses with p-value set at 0.05. Age of respondents was 18.5±0.7 years. Results. Majority (80.6%) had poor knowledge of when to start ante-natal care. Also, 70.0% of the respondents could not perceive growth monitoring as a necessary strategy for child survival and 86.4% perceived diarrhoea as normal for children during the teething period. Many (58.4%) did not practise exclusive breastfeeding. Respondents with secondary education were less likely to have poor knowledge than those with primary education (OR: 0.2, CI: 0.6-0.9, 95%). Respondents, who received supervision from older women during childcare, were less likely to have poor childcare practice than those who did not (OR: 0.2, CI: 0.4-0.7, 95%). Conclusion. Respondents had poor knowledge of childcare practices when childcare survival strategies were used as the yardstick for evaluation. Involvement of older women is suggested to assist adolescent mothers improve their knowledge and practices of childcare.