Frequency of Breast feeding among working women of Multan.

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the frequency of exclusive breast feeding among working women of Multan and to identify associations between socio demographic factors and exclusive breast feeding. Study Design: Descriptive cross sectional study. Setting: Public and private organizations of Multan city. Period: From 22-07-2017 to 25-05-2018. Material & Methods: The total 227 working women were enrolled by nonprobability purposive sampling technique. Data was collected on a predefined questionnaire. Results pertaining to rates were reported as frequencies and percentages. Post stratification Pearson chi square test was applied to identify significance of associations between socio demographic factors of working women and exclusive breast feeding. Result: Mean age of our study cases was 28.24 ± 9.01. The frequency of exclusive breast feeding was noted as 44.5%. Post stratification Pearson chi square test revealed statistically significant associations between of certain socio demographic factors and exclusive breast feeding. Working women of younger than 30 years of age, urdu speaking ethnicity, banker by profession, living in nuclear family, more than 36 hours of work in a week, more than three children and shorter than two years of inter pregnancy interval were less likely to practice exclusive breast feeding. Conclusion: The frequency of exclusive breast feeding was below the rate of exclusive breast feeding in the general population of Pakistan as well as below those recommended by World Health Organization (WHO). Evaluations of national health policy and awareness campaigns are needed to increase the rate of exclusive breast feeding in working women.