LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Feeding Practices in Infants of Bhil Tribe in Jhabua District of Madhya Pradesh Jhabua District is located in the Western Part of Madhya Pradesh and 86 % of the

has ICDS in all the blocks. It also has the dubious distinction of having the lowest female literacy rate (9%) in the State. We evaluated the infant feeding practices in 10 % households of 5 % villages of each Tehsil of Jhabua District by multistage ran-dom sampling. Thus 430 households of 67 villages across Jhabua which had atleast one child in 0-6 years age group partici-pated in the study. Information on breastfeeding and supplementary feeding were obtained from the mother through an Interview Schedule. Only 18.3 % mothers said they breastfed their child immediately after birth. Nearly 21 % mothers said they started breastfeeding their child on the 3rd day after delivery. In between, either they did not give anything to the child or gave a mixture of 'gud and water ' or honey to the newborn child. Thus 45.8 % mothers started breastfeeding their child by the third day, but 54.2 % mothers responded that they started breastfeeding their child only on the fourth day. Majority (77.3%) of mothers said they did not give colostrum to the newborn baby. Mothers gave several rea-sons for not giving colostrum to newborns; prominent among them were the beliefs that colostrum is not good for the baby and it is not easily digestable. Only 0.9 % mothers started weaning foods for their babies between the ages of 4 to 6 months, 17.6 % mothers started be-tween 7-8 months, 36.9 % mothers started between 9 to 12 months and 39.5 % mothers started weaning foods only after the child was one year of age. The study highlights the inept infant feeding practices in this tribe and the urgent neef for an intensive Nutrition Education Programme in this context