But large number of children die every year from causes that could be prevented by the parents if they had been taught the healthful way to care for their children. Child care begins with the mother when she isn't pregnant, what she eats and how she cares for herself affects her chances to have a healthy strong baby. She needs to know how to feed and care for the infant now and when to wean the child and how to properly feed and care for the toddler after weaning. The mortality rate in children between the ages of two years and four or five is great in many areas. When the children are no longer given breast milk, they are often fed only a diet of starchy gruel with no protein for which protein deficiency in preschool children is one of the great nutritional problems with which Government around the world are now concerned.
Child care emphasizes good nutrition in relation to progress of the child in school.
It includes children's needs and how to meet these leads from infancy to adolescence. Parents need to understand that to give their children better living, both the home and the community must increasingly become healthful places to rear children. If there is not proper food to eat, houses have no windows, if they are unsanitary, if they have no latrines, if water for their family is unsafe and scarce, if there are flies and mosquitoes everywhere, the children have little chance to grow healthy and strong. Whether the mother is categorized as tribal or non-tribal, urban or rural, she is constantly attempting to keep her child healthy either through conventional child care practices. Since the tribal mothers have better opportunities and greater exposure to indigenous child care practices over conventional methods the location for the study was selected through purposive sampling technique and the data were collected through participant observation method and key informant technique.