Exclusive breastfeeding cessation and associated factors Among employed and unemployed mothers having children Aged 6 to 23 months in mizan aman town, bench sheko zone South west Ethiopia: A community based study

Abstract

Background: - Employed women tend to exclusively breastfeed less than non-employed women. Early returning to work has been major reason why employed women stop exclusive breastfeeding. Exclusive breastfeeding cessation leads to high mortality-related diarrheal disease in sub-Saharan countries, and Cessation of EBF increases the risk of pneumonia morbidity and related death, excessive diarrhea, and low growth rate compared to exclusively breastfed infants. Objective: - To assess the prevalence of Exclusive breastfeeding cessation and associated factors among employed and unemployed mothers in Mizan Aman Town, Bench Sheko Zone Southwest Ethiopia. Methods and Materials: -A community based comparative cross-sectional study was conducted from April 2 to May 30; 2021using total sample of 453 randomly selected permanently employed and unemployed mothers having children aged 6to 23 months in Mizan Aman Town, Bench Sheko Zone South west Ethiopia were included in this study . The data was collected from randomly selected three Kebeles using interviewer admistered questioaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to present the data. Both bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with exclusive breastfeeding practice.Data were checked for completeness, entered and analyzed by SPSS version 20. Binary logistic regression was done to identify factors associated with exclusive breastfeeding cessation. The strength of association was measured using odds ratio with 95% confidence intervals. Result: The prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding cessation was71.3% (AOR18.08, 95%CI.9.13-35.8) of these 43% and 28.3% among employed and unemployed mothers respectively. The duration of work per day employed mother who work Over-time 46 (22.7%) Full time140 (69.0%) Part-time7 (3.4%).162(79.8%) 22.7% were over time workers, frequent period of return to work from maternity leave 122(60.1%), was between the third and fourth months after birth. Breastfeeding in the workplace was 39 (19.2%) and no breastfeeding at the work place is154 (75.9%), 54(26.6%) having lactation break and 139(68.5%) who had no reasonable lactation break during working time. Conclusion: a significant difference among employed and unemployed. Therefore, most important to support breastfeeding in the workplace would be lawful requirements. Prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding cessation was much higher than the international and national expectation. The concerned governmental bodies should consider improving the legislation of the 4 months postpartum maternity leave to reduce employed mother's exclusive breastfeeding cessation.