الخلاصة

Abstract- Background: Breastfeeding is an important source of infant's nutrition in the first six months of their life.Breast milk is considered the first vaccine to infants, contains antibodies providing immunologic protection against death from infectious diseases. Objective: to assessmother's knowledgetoward breastfeeding, to find out relationship between mother's knowledge toward breastfeeding and their demographic data. Material and methods: Across-sectional descriptive study is carried out in (6) primary health care centers at AL-Najaf city, from November 1st,2015 until July, 21th, 2016. A non-probability (purposive sample) from 150 lactating mother. Results:The study results revealthere is a significant relationship between mother's knowledge about breastfeeding with mother's age, method of delivery, educational status of the mother and husband. Conclusion and Recommendation:Majority of the studied mothers have good knowledge about breastfeeding.The study recommends that educational programs for pregnant women and mothers to increase their knowledge and interest about breastfeeding; encourage mothers for exclusive breastfeeding within first six months of infant's life.