Abstract:
Background: Employed women tend to exclusively breast-feed less than non-employed
women. Returning to work is one of the main reasons why employed women discontinue
breastfeeding. Enabling women to continue breastfeeding at work has benefits for the infant,
employee and organization. However, little is known about employed mothers’ views,
intention, experiences and barriers of breastfeeding from employment perspective and
organizational support.
Objective: To assess exclusive breastfeeding discontinuation and associated factors among
employed mothers in Dukem, Ethiopia.
Methods: Cross-sectional study was conducted from February 28 to March 28, 2015. A total
of 313 permanently employed women was randomly selected and interviewed. Information
regarding participants' work-related factors, health service and socio-demographic factors was
collected by face to face interview using structured questionnaire. Data was checked for its
completeness, entered into EpiData3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis. Data
analysis was done using logistic regression. Strength of association was measured using odds
ratio with 95% confidence intervals.
Results: Prevalence of exclusively breastfeed discontinuation was 76%. Type of organization
(AOR=2.1,95%CI(1,4.3)), period of return to work from maternity leave (AOR=9.3,
95%CI(3.8, 23)), Duration of work per day (AOR=3.5 ,95%CI(1.7, 11)), flexible work
time(AOR=3,95%CI(1.2,7.5)),Pumping breast milk(AOR=4.3,95%CI(1.7,11)), Lactation
break (AOR=6.7, 95%CI(3, 14.5)) and far from child (AOR=3.1, 95%CI(3.1, 6.3)) were
significantly associated with outcome variable in the final regression model.
Conclusion and Recommendation: Prevalence of exclusively breastfeeding discontinuation
was much higher than the international and national expectation. The Administration of
organization should work on supporting exclusive breastfeeding giving special emphasis to
employed mothers who have child less than six months. The government should also consider
revising the legislation of the two month postpartum maternity leave to reduce employed
mother's exclusive breastfeeding discontinuation within six months.
