340A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY TO ASSES THE ROLE OF MATERNAL LITERACY STATUS ON WEANING PRACTICES IN RURAL COMMUNITYIn most of our poor rural communities, however, supplementary feeding is not started till at a much later date, one of the main reasons being the mothers belief that as long as the child is receiving some breast milk, there is no need for additional food .even when supplementary foods are introduced relatively early, both the quantity and quality of the supplements are far from satisfactory. Understanding of the knowledge and practices of the community regarding weaning practices, causes for early and late introducing supplementary food. Therefore the present study was carried out to evaluate the social factors influencing weaning practices in rural community. This study was carried out to know weaning practices among literate and illiterate mothers living in rural area. The present community based cross-sectional study was carried out in rural area of Bijapur taluka in Karnataka state from January to June 2014, all literate& illiterate mothers (245) having children between 0-2 years of age were interviewed. Out of 245 mothers, 120(44%) mothers are illiterate. Majority (55.5%) of mothers (136) started weaning at 6months. Significant association was found between mother’s education and the age of introduction of complementary foods. Weaning practices among literate mothers were satisfactorykulkarnigopal55@gmail/comcasereport5102015Weaning,Literacy,Child,MotherG.V.Kulkarni,M.M.Angadi,V.M.SorganviLecturer, Dept. of Community Medicine, BLDE University’s Shri B.M.Patil Medical College Bijapur, Karnataka-586103, India.,Professor & HOD, Dept. of Community Medicine, BLDE University’s Shri B.M.Patil Medical College Bijapur, Karnataka-586103, India.,Lecturer, Dept. of Community Medicine, BLDE University’s Shri B.M.Patil Medical College Bijapur, Karnataka-586103, India.