Objective: This study aimed to assess maternal attitudes toward infant feeding using the Iowa Infant Feeding Attitude Scale (IIFAS) and to examine the associations of these attitudes with maternal sociodemographic characteristics and breastfeeding practices.

Materials and Methods: The study included 305 mothers whose healthy term born children had no chronic diseases, and were  6 to 24 months of age. A questionnaire addressing demographic characteristics was administered during face-to-face interviews. The IIFAS was also used to assess maternal attitudes toward infant feeding. Spearman’s correlation and nonparametric group comparisons (Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis tests) were used to examine associations between IIFAS scores and maternal sociodemographic characteristics and breastfeeding practices.

Results: The mean age of the participants’ children was 14.7±4.7 months, and 54.8% were male. The mean IIFAS score was 71.7±5.6 (range: 48–82), indicating that most mothers had attitudes favoring breastfeeding. Mothers with university-level education or higher had significantly higher IIFAS scores than those with lower levels of education (p<0.001). Employed  mothers had significantly lower scores than non-employed mothers (p=0.016). Significant but weak-to-moderate positive correlations were found between IIFAS scores and maternal education level (r=0.28, p<0.001) and the duration of exclusive breastfeeding (r=0.12, p=0.029), whereas the interval between birth and breastfeeding initiation was weakly negatively correlated with IIFAS scores (r=−0.18, p=0.012).

Conclusion: Maternal attitudes toward breastfeeding, as measured  by the IIFAS, were primarily associated with educational background and employment status, and may also be related to the duration of exclusive breastfeeding. These findings are hypothesis-generating; whether targeted educational initiatives and workplace policies that support lactation improve breastfeeding practices remains to be tested in prospective studies.