Time to stop exclusive breastfeeding and its determinants among employed and unemployed mothers of 6-12 months‟ of age infants in Debretabor town, Amhara region, south Gondar zone, north west Ethiopia, community based comparative cross sectional study

Abstract

Background; Exclusive breastfeeding is feeding an infant with only breast milk for the first six months of life, excluding solids or any other fluids including infant formulas except medicines, vitamins and minerals. Early discontinuation of breastfeeding is known to be associated with avoidable childhood morbidity. Various studies have been conducted on prevalence of exclusive breast feeding and associated factors. However, the impact of maternal employment on the duration of exclusive breastfeeding and its determinants has not been addressed adequately in Ethiopia. Objective; The aim of this study was to compare time to stop EBF and its determinants among employed and unemployed mothers of 6-12 months „of age infants in Debretabor town, north west Ethiopia. Method; A community based comparative cross sectional study was conducted from march 1 - 30,2019. A total of 426 mothers were recruited using simple random sampling technique. Kebeles were selected by lottery method and study participants were selected by table of random numbers Interviewer administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were entered to epi data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 23 for analysis. The Kaplan-Meier curve with log rank test was used to compare difference in cessation of exclusive breastfeeding before 6 months. Bivariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards model were estimated to measure the strength of association Results; A total of 426(213 employed and 213 un employed) mothers were interviewed. The median duration of exclusive breast feeding was 4 months and 6 months for children of employed& unemployed mothers respectively. Employed mothers(AHR=3.77,95%CI=(2.4,5.9)), mothers who had paid maternity leave of 4 months(AHR=7,95%CI=2.2,22.2), primipara mothers (AHR=1.5,95%CI=(1.14,2.04)) who did not have family support of EBF(AHR=3.99,95%CI=(1.9,8.3)), and mothers who had no EBF counseling during PNC(AHR=7.76,95%CI=(2.99,20.1)) were more likely to cease EBF before six months of life. Conclusion; The median duration of exclusive breast feeding was shorter among employed mothers than un-employed mothers. Providing enabling conditions like breast feeding corners at work place, flexible work hours and breast-feeding breaks are needed to improve rate of exclusive breastfeeding among employed women.