PREVALENCE OF BREAST FEEDING IN THE WORKING WOMEN OF DISTRICT MARDAN

Abstract

Objectives: Finding out how often working women breastfeed was the main goal of my research. Second, the impactof employment on breastfeeding was noted. Third, it was assessed if working women were using bottles.Methodology: Cross-sectional research was done in this study from June 2015 to august 2015. The MardanMedical Complex’s outpatient clinics and wards served as the study’s working environment. The research took twomonths to complete. The participants gave their written agreement before the researchers filled out questionnaires basedon the information provided by the subjects. SPSS version 16 was used to input, analyse, and show the survey data astabular, bar, and pie charts. A thorough debate was conducted based on this evidence, and conclusions were reached.Results: 100% of our sample were exclusively breastfed for 6 months, and 75% of them were found to be nursing.The employment position of women has been identified as the primary cause of this early cessation.In the first week,only few females began bottle feeding.However, the prevalence of bottle feeding rose in the weeks that followed. Thepreference for bottle milk over breast milk was 23%. Again, the work was the cause, however some of them preferedbottle feeding since they were more familiar with it.Conclusion: Although breastfeeding was common among working women, it was not possible to breastfeed exclusivelyfor the recommended six months. Therefore, it is important to encourage working women to breastfeed at work or totake lactation breaks so that they can do so.Key words: breastfeeding practices, bottle feeding, breastfeeding prevalence.