However, there is a paucity of data from squatter settlements. The present study was designed to look into the colostrum and prelacteal feeding practices of the families of pavement and roadside squatter settlements.

No enumeration of roadside squatter settlements had been made in Jaipur city when the present study was conducted from March 1999 to March 2001. The Jaipur Nagar Nigam and the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) officials provided some information on the whereabouts of a few squatter settlements; the rest of the information was obtained from the residents of the squatter settlements and their leaders, as also local people living nearby. Inmates of squatter settlements on the pavements and on vacant plots alongside the mainroads were approached for data collection. The sample comprised 294 families, which were purposively selected from 42 squatter settlements. In all, 294 mothers were interviened with the help of an interview schedule on the breast and infant feeding practices followed by them.

the mothers was poor (98.3%). Most of the families had a nuclear family structure (84.5%). The families were engaged in activities generating low incomes. They were exposed to the ill effects of the environment.

It is evident from Table-l that 14.3% mothers had given colostrum, while 85.7% had deprived their infants of this valuable food. Almost all the

found in their study that colostrum was discarded by 82.89% mothers because they were ignorant of its advantages. In rural areas of Haryana, the situation was even more dismal as revealed from a study by Punia ef

carried out a study on a low socio-economic group of women from urban slums and rural areas of Maharashtra and Gujarat and noted that 22% of the mothers had fed colostrum to their infants. The reasons cited by mothers for not feeding colostrum were elders\u2019 negative attitude towards colostrum feeding,

prohibition, belief that it is bad for the child\u2019s health, caesarean deliveries and absence of colostrum secretion. About 31% of urban and 80% of rural mothers from Coimbatore did not feed colostrum to their

stated from his study on colostrum feeding of healthy newborns that none of the babies were deprived of colostrum. It was because all the babieshad been delivered