Relation Between The Level of Mothers Knowledge about Complementary Foods with Nutritional Status of Children Aged 6-24 Months

Abstract: Complementary Food is additional foods that are useful for supplementing breast milk. Mother's knowledge about complementary foods is very important, because it is very influential for children's growth and development. The purpose of this study is to prove whether there is a relationship between the level of maternal knowledge of complementary foods and the nutritional status of children. Frequency of respondents mostly had the high knowledge about complementary foods (86%) and under nutrition of children aged 6-24 month (14%). This analytic observational research with cross-sectional design was conducted using consecutive sampling method. Chi square test results show the value of p = 0.005 with confidence interval 95% (CI= 0,11-3,89) so that it can be concluded that there is a relation between the level of maternal knowledge about complementary foods with the nutritional status of children aged 6-24 months. Risk for mothers with less of knowledge about nutrition to have children with undernutrition is 0,67 times. Keywords: Complementary food, knowledge, Nutritional Status, Children.