Sample size and sampling design
The sample size was estimated based on the expected prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding rates in the district at each time point. In the pre-intervention stage with assumed prevalence of EBF of 40% and absolute precision of 5% and a design effect of 1.2 (for clustering), the sample size calculated was 427. The corresponding sample sizes for the 1st and 2nd post intervention stages were 447 and 440 respectively, assuming the same design effect and expected prevalence of EBF to be 50% and 55% in the two time periods.
Statistical analysis
Data was entered into MS Access and analyzed using Stata 11. Categorical data are presented as number (%) while continuous variables are presented as mean (SD), if normally distributed and median (interquartile range), if skewed. Statistical analysis was performed using Student's t-test/Wilcoxon rank sum test and Chi-square test for continuous and categorical variables respectively. We calculated the relative risk (RR)/mean difference with 95% CI for all the outcomes. P-value of