Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Research Article

Current Level and Correlates of Exclusive Breastfeeding among Employed Mothers in Debre Marko’s Town, Northwest Ethiopia, 2013

¹Department of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Science, Debre Markos University, PO Box 269, DebreMarkos, Ethiopia

²Bahirdar University, Operational Research Advisor, ANRS RHB, PO Box 79, BahirDar, Ethiopia

*Corresponding Author:

Dube Jara
Department of Public Health
College of Medicine and Health Science
Debre Markos University, Ethiopia
Tel: +251 913 910 575
E-mail: duhoney05@gmail.com

Received date September 20, 2014; Accepted date November 27, 2014; Published date November 29, 2014

Citation: Hailu S, Wassie B, Jara D (2014) Current Level and Correlates of Exclusive Breastfeeding among Employed Mothers in Debre Marko’s Town, Northwest Ethiopia, 2013. J Community Med Health Educ 4:317. doi:10.4172/2161-0711.1000317

Copyright: © 2014 Hailu S, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Introduction: Breast milk promotes sensory and cognitive development, and protects the infant against infectious and chronic disease. Breastfeeding duration was found to be low among working mothers due to reasons like short maternity leave, workplaces were not allowed and even the allowed workplaces were not have privacy for breastfeeding or milk expressing. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess current level and correlates of exclusive breastfeeding among employed mothers in Debre Markos town, Northwest, Ethiopia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 405 employed mothers selected simple random sampling. Data were collected by interview using structured self-administered questionnaire. The analysis was done using SPSS version 16. Logistic regression analysis was used to identify correlates of exclusive breastfeeding. Result: one hundred thirty (34.95%) of mothers were exclusively breastfed their children as per recommended standard. Mother who had flexible time to express breast milk were 4.3 times more likely to exclusively breastfed as compared with those mother who did not, [AOR=4.26(1.97, 9.20)]. Those delivered mother who returned after 4 month of leave were 3.4 times more likely exclusively breastfed as compared to mother who returned after the 2 month, [AOR=3.38, 95% CI: 1.46, 7.87]. Job offers leave was also significantly associated with exclusive breastfeeding. Conclusion: Exclusive breastfeeding level among employed mothers was low in town. Flexible time to express breast milk and time to return to work were found to have association with exclusive breastfeeding. It is advisable to give some flexible working hours to express breast milk for mother who have children.

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