Determinants of pre-lacteal feeding practice in Ethiopia: Evidence from the 2019 Mini Demographic and Health Survey (MDHS), a community-based cross-sectional study

Background: Every year, 10.9 million people die around the world. More than two-thirds of deaths were associated with inappropriate feeding practices. Within the first three days after birth, nearly two out of every five newborns are given fluids other than breast milk. The aim of this study was to assess the determinants of pre-lacteal feeding practice in Ethiopia among mothers who had a live birth child under the age of 24 months. Methods: Secondary data from Ethiopia's 2019 Mini Demographic and Health Survey (MDHS) were used. A stratified, two-stage cluster sampling method was employed in the MDHS. A total of 8,885 reproductive-age women were interviewed in the survey, but only 2,061 women with a live birth child under the age of two years were included. Our study focused on the details obtained for these 2,061 women. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with pre-lacteal feeding practices among them. A Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness of fit test was used to check the model fitness and a multicollinearity test was used to diagnosis collinearity between independent variables. Results: The results revealed that 12.1% (95%CI; 10.30%, 13.9%) of the women practiced pre-lacteal feeding. Mothers who lived in pastoralist regions (AOR:3.2; 95%CI: 1.5-6.84), who hadn’t attended antenatal care (ANC) visits (AOR:3.83; 95%CI: 1.55-6.27), who had attended 1-3 visits (AOR:1.65; 95%CI: 1.15-3.94), who delivered at home (AOR:1.72, 95%CI: 1.20-2.43), those who delivered by Caesarean section (AOR:3.72; 95%CI: 2.32-5.96), mothers who started breastfeeding after one hour (AOR:4.41; 95%CI: 3.23-6.02) were identified as the groups most associated with pre-lacteal feeding. Conclusions: Pre-lacteal feeding was practiced by a significant number of women in this study. Living in a pastoralist region, attending 1-3 ANC visits, home delivery, caesarean section delivery, and late initiation of breastfeeding were the determinant factors of prelacteal feeding among the women.