breastfeeding in the first 6 months of life as the proven safest feeding practice, recent studies from Papua New Guinea (PNG) showed that the rate of exclusive breastfeeding was well below the world average. There is a paucity of recent studies on breastfeeding in rural PNG, and this study aimed to identify the knowledge of, attitudes towards and practice of breastfeeding by rural mothers. Methods: A mixed method study using face-to-face interviews based on semi-structured questionnaires was conducted among rural mothers (n = 40) in 2014. Purposive homogeneous sampling was used to select participants. We included mothers in the child-bearing age of 18-40 years who had a child under the age of three years, and who could speak Tok Pisin. Content analysis for qualitative data and descriptive statistics for quantitative data were applied. Results: Despite the fact that most mothers regarded breastfeeding to be a better way of infant feeding than bottle feeding, they did not understand the reasons why. With regard to exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life our study showed a striking gap between global recommendation and practice. 78% of mothers (n = 31) in our study did not practise exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of their baby’s life. Given that the majority of mothers had not completed grade 8, during which formal education on infant feeding practices is supposed to take place, most of the mothers had missed school education on infant feeding. Conclusion: Knowledge about the importance of exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months of life and its practice was very poor. Because promotion of breastfeeding practices in developing countries has been shown to be one of the most cost-effective health interventions, we suggest the introduction of infant feeding teaching in grade 4 in school curricula and the development of community-based educational programs on infant feeding.
Breast feeding, women,