Maternal nutrition knowledge and child feeding practices are essential in child’s growth and
development. Without adequate nutrition knowledge and optimal feeding practices, poor nutritional
status among children can arise even in households with adequate income and food, good sanitation and
health services. The consequences of Undernutrition can have long-term limiting impact on child’s
growth. This paper presents the level of maternal nutrition knowledge and their child feeding practices,
and the influence they have on child’s nutritional status in an urban area in Nigeria. A validated
interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect information from mothers of children 6-23
months of age. The level of maternal knowledge on child health and nutrition was examined; overall
knowledge was classified as good, fair and poor. Also, the child feeding practices among mothers using
the World Health Organization indicators for assessing infant and young child feeding was assessed. The
weights and heights of the children were measured using standard procedures and converted to indices
that were used to measure stunting, underweight and wasting. The findings showed that most of the
mothers had insufficient nutrition knowledge as they fell into the category of fair and poor knowledge
and most of the children were sub-optimally fed. Thus, it was not surprising when their nutritional status
revealed high prevalence of malnutrition. Consequently, poor maternal nutritional knowledge and
feeding practices is found to be a predisposition to malnutrition in children in their first two years of life.