Breastfeeding and employment

Working per se is not necessarily a breastfeeding barrier, but the separation of mother and child certainly is, as is the attitude towards breastfeeding in mom’s close and wider society. Cooklin, Donath and Amir analyzed the data from 3697 Australian children and their mothers and found a positive link between more work and less breastfeeding at 6 months. Other studies in other countries did and continue to point to similar results. Other researchers don’t stick with counting, but try and find factors that may lead to these mechanisms and how to avoid the decrease in breastfeeding duration. Fein et al found that mothers who were able to directly breastfeed their children during the working day had the best chances to succeed, directly followed by those who could express breastmilk during the day. Not feeding nor pumping understandably led to the less chances of breastfeeding success. They advise that mother-child separation is as short as possible and that there should be in-company child care facilities where mothers can go to breastfeed and/or means for working mothers to feed the child at their own workplace if the child is brought to them. Johnston and Esposito found in their literature review that the personal characteristics of the mother and her paln of action are key factors for breastfeeding success, aided strongly by a supportive social environment and support groups. Other positive factors included part-time work, lack of long periods of mother-child separation, supportive work conditions and breastfeeding supportive child care facilities. The New Zealand Payne and James study pointed to three key factors for continuation of breastfeeding: the presence or absence of the factors of space, time and support. Their advice towards employers is to create breastfeeding supporting work conditions, but they do recognize the need for ‘’the society’’ as a whole to change its attitude towards working women who breastfeed.
Cooklin AR, Donath SM, Amir LH: Maternal employment and breastfeeding: results from the longitudinal study of Australian children. Acta Paediatrica (2008), 97:620–623.
Fein SB, Mandal B, Roe BE: Success of Strategies for Combining Employment and Breastfeeding. Pediatrics 2008 122: S56-S62
Payne D, James L: Make or break. Mothers' experiences of returning to paid employment and breastfeeding: a New Zealand study. Breastfeed Rev. 2008 Jul;16(2):21-7.