Introduction:

Food is an important factor to ensuring the existence, growth and development of a child.

Objectives:

to identify the socioeconomic profile of children under one year of age hospitalized in a public hospital in the country side of Maranhão and of their mothers; to know the complementary feeding given tby mothers and their history of breastfeeding.

Method:

Descriptive, cross-sectional, quantitative research conducted between February and September 2015. Data were collected through forms applied to mothers, and the sample comprised 174 individuals.

Results:

62.7% of the children were male, 42.5% were 1 to 4 months old, 55.7% were hospitalized with respiratory problems, their mothers were housewives aged between 15 and 35 years. The data showed that children received liquids, artificial milk and food precociously, and only 20.1% had practiced exclusive breastfeeding until the sixth month.

Conclusion:

The children under one year of age have an inadequate eating pattern. Therefore, actions that promote the practice of healthy feeding are necessary.

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