Abstract:

Introduction: Child survival continues to improve worldwide. The total number of deaths of children under five years old fell from 12.4 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2009. The mortality rate in children under five years old has fallen correspondingly from 89 per 1000 live births in 1990 to 60 per 1000 live births in 2009, representing a reduction of about one third. At the same time, the average annual rate of decline has accelerated over the period 2000–2009 compared with the 1990s. The level of mortality, however, remained alarmingly high in certain regions of the world.

Method: The study was a community-based cross sectional study. The study employed multi-stage random cluster sampling procedure to select households and villages in Yendi district. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to collect data from the study target population which included the caregivers, the community based agent and community health officers.

Results: Majority of the respondents practice exclusive breastfeeding up to six months of child’s age whiles other practice up to four months. A good percentage (48%) of the caregivers introduced complementary food at six months and beyond and fed their children more than five times in a day as indicated in the figure below. This showed good feeding practice by caregivers. Greater percentage (68.5%) of children are immunized through the outreach services and 31.5 were immunized through the static clinic sessions

Conclusion: The finding concluded that there was general improvement in the infant and child health interventions. These findings predict that improvement in outreach and community level service is potential for improving child survival. There is also low uptake of vitamin A supplementation and de-wormers. A significant number (30.3%) of new born missed OPV at birth. As the ages of the children increased coverage of antigens decreased. This finding is worrisome and needs attention by health providers.

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