Fatima Ayaz, Saeed Bin Ayaz, Muhammad Furrukh, Sumeera Matee.
Cleaning practices and contamination status of infant feeding bottle contents and teats in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Pak J Pathol Jan ;28(1):13-20.

Objective: To evaluate the cleaning practices and contamination status of contents and teats of feeding bottles used by children admitted in the hospitals of Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Study Design: Descriptive cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Pediatrics, Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH), Rawalpindi from December 2015 to January 2016.Materials and Methods: Mothers and caregivers of the children being bottlefed and admitted in the indoor facility of department of Pediatrics, BBH, were consecutively sampled and interviewed. For the isolation of pathogens, the samples were taken from the teats of feeding bottles and evaluated in the microbiology laboratory of BBH. Results: Of 198 children (mean age: 8 +- 10 months), majority (61.1%) were males and admitted with respiratory problems. Mothers being the primary caretakers washed their hands before making food (93.4%), and used soap and water (90.9%) to wash the feeding bottles after every use. Boiled water was chiefly used (68.7%) for washing. The bottles were sterilized thorough boiling (100%) for < 10 minutes (76.5%) once every day (60.8%). The bottle leftover contents were discarded by the bulk (92.2%) of the caretakers after feeding. In the majority of cases, the bottle contents were found contaminated (52.1%) largely with Klebsiella (42.9%), followed by Acinobacter Baumini (26.3%), and Escherichia Coli (17.3%).Conclusion: Most caregivers of children in our study washed their hands before making food, cleaned feeding bottles with soap and water after every use while the left-over contents of the food were discarded rather than stored. Most of them prepared formula milk in boiled water and tried to sterilize the feeding bottles by boiling them in water. Most bottles were contaminated, primarily by Klebsiella, Acinobacter Baumini, and Eschericia Coli.

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