Parkdale Infant Nutrition Security Targeted Evaluation Project: Infant Feeding

In Toronto Ontario, the Parkdale Community Health Centre operates a community outreach program entitled Parkdale Parents' Primary Prevention Project (5P's). The 5P's provides weekly pre- and post-natal support and education programs for clients. This includes an infant feeding program for mothers with infants 0-6 months (Feeding Tiny Souls). The 5P's has a diverse client-base; the program is aimed at women who are in challenging life circumstances, therefore, clients may include low-income or single mothers and newcomers to Canada.

The aim of this project is to investigate the incidence, duration and exclusivity of breastfeeding and timely complementary feeding based on level of maternal participation in components of a pre and postnatal community outreach program. Exploring infant feeding practices is an evaluation component that will not only characterize infant feeding practices within a vulnerable population, but will elucidate whether there are areas of concern that need to be expanded upon within pre or postnatal programming. A prospective infant feeding questionnaire will be administered to participants at 2 weeks and at 2, 4 and 6 months postpartum. The study population will consist of women who enrolled in 5P's prenatally. The hypothesis is that exclusive breastfeeding rates will be low, but higher breastfeeding rates will be observed among women who utilize provided postnatal services more readily.