Breast milk, as recommended by the World Health Organization, has enumerable benefits for the infant as it not only promotes the sensory and cognitive development of the infant but also protects the infants against infection and chronic diseases and provides most of the child’s nutritional needs. So Breastfeeding behavior of the nursing mother has enormous effect on the health of the baby. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recommend that all mothers should breastfeed their babies exclusively for 6 months and then complement breastfeeding with foods up to the second year of life or later.in spite of these recommendation the practice of exclusive breastfeeding has remained poor in many developing and developed countries including Saudi Arabia due to various factors as revealed by various researches. This study therefore assessed the breastfeeding practices and associated factors among mothers of children less than two years of age in Al Ahsa District of Saudi Arabia A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out among 955 mothers of children less than two years of age, Data was collected using validated semi-structured, interviewer-administered questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS Version 21. Of 955 mother-infant pairs sampled, the overall rate of Exclusive breastfeeding was found to be 35.07%. After an adjustment, using logistic regression model, mothers who are housewife (OR=2.17, 95% CI 1.12-3.23), living in Urban area (OR=1.8, 95% CI 1.04-3.5), mothers in the age group of 40 years (OR=2.03, 95%CI 1.23-3.86) middle income group mother (OR=2.12 95%CI 1.32-3.76),higher educated mother (OR=2.1, 95%CI 1.1-3.45), mother with graduate husband (OR=1.12 95%CI 0.9-2.50), those mothers who received information regarding the breastfeeding benefits from the attending gynecologist (OR=2.20 , 95% CI 1.56-3.85) showed significant association with the practice of exclusive breast feeding for six months. The breastfeeding practices of respondents were far low in this study. Adequate education of mothers and their partners as well as the reason of discontinuing breastfeeding remains to be addressed.
