Maternal status and breastfeeding practices have a major impact on infant health, growth and development. The improvement of mother’s socio-economic and socio-demographic characteristic is necessary for proper nursing of infants to ensure normal development of their child. This study aims to determine the effect of mother status and their breast feeding practices on development of their infant aged from zero to twenty four months in south-west region of Bangladesh. It was a comparative cross-sectional study. Six hundred subjects among age group from zero to twenty four months of children were studied in four selected districts in the rural area. The assessed variables in this study include birth weight, breastfeeding practices and other indicators of socio-economic and socio-demographic state, including maternal age, education and family income. This study found the initiation of breastfeeding about 62% and 48.66% (P<0.001) in the rural and urban area respectively within one hour after birth. Prelacteal feed was assessed to 48.33% and 41.33% in both the areas respectively. Exclusive breast feed was found to 71.33% and 23.33% in rural and urban area (P>0.13) respectively. It was found that appropriate CF (completion of breast feeding of 6 months) was 50.0% in rural area and 57.66% in urban area. Proper knowledge on colostrum feed in both rural and urban areas were found to 45.0% and 77.0% (P<0.049) respectively. Significance difference was found between rural and urban areas for the initiation of breastfeeding (P<0.001), exclusive breastfeeding (P>0.13), continuous breastfeeding (P<0.002) and complementary feeding practice (P<0.01). Furthermore, this study assessed the birth weight of baby depending on parent’s socio-economic and socio-demographic characteristic. The birth weight was found to better with the mature age of mother, proper education and occupation of parents, less number of living children and family member and comparatively higher family income. This study showed that the maternal status and breast feeding practice was better in rural area than urban area. Therefore, the appropriate breast feeding practice plays as an important role on their good nutrition status to ensure normal growth of infants.
