Knowledge and practice on adequate sunlight exposure of infants among mothers attending EPI unit of Aleta Wondo Health Center, SNNPR, Ethiopia

OBJECTIVE: The main objective of this study was to assess knowledge and practice of adequate sunlight exposure of infants among mothers attending EPI unit at Aleta Wondo Health Center, Sidama zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia. Institutional based descriptive cross sectional study design was used. 313 mothers who had under 1 year child and immunization follow-up were selected by simple random sampling technique using immunization registration book as sampling frame. RESULT: Out of 313 respondents identified for the study 98.03% (n = 307) were responded for the interview. From the total respondents 279 (90.9%) of respondents exposed their infants to sunlight but only 62 (22%) of them exposed adequately. From 307 mothers, 191 (62.2%) are knowledgeable about sunlight exposure and 91 (32.6%) of mothers had good practice of exposing their infants to sunlight. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13104-019-4221-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.