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Title: Initiation and Duration of Breastfeeding Among Employed Women in the United States
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Keck, Canada K. |
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Initiation and Duration of Breastfeeding Among Employed Women in the United States Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1997 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning Keyword(s): Birthweight; Breastfeeding; Demography; Ethnic Differences; First Birth; Household Composition; Labor Force Participation; Leave, Family or Maternity/Paternity; Locus of Control (see Rotter Scale); Maternal Employment; Racial Differences Despite a growing body of medical evidence that breastfeeding is beneficial to infants and mothers, women face many obstacles in initiating and maintaining breastfeeding. With the growing trend of mothers with children under one participating in the labor force, understanding the effects of employment on breastfeeding is crucial to any policy attempts to increase breastfeeding rates. I examine the impact of demographic, social psychological, employment, and birth factors on the initiation and duration of breastfeeding, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). I analyze mothers employed during the pregnancy leading to their first birth who returned to work at some point during the first year afterwards (N=1698). Blacks but not Hispanics are significantly less likely to initiate breastfeeding than whites. Women in the West are significantly more likely to initiate breastfeeding than women in the Northeast, North Central or South. Women with higher leve ls of education, who are older at their first birth, who have a spouse or partner, who have greater internal locus of control, who have higher levels of occupational complexity, and who work 30 hours or less during their pregnancy are significantly more likely to breastfeed. Women who have a cesarean section and women who have indications of difficult birth conditions are significantly less likely to initiate breastfeeding. Among women who do initiate (N=891), women with higher levels of education, who live in the West, who have a spouse or partner, who return to work later and work 30 hours or less after returning breastfeed significantly longer. Hispanics but not Blacks have significantly shorter duration than whites. Having a difficult birth has a negative impact on duration of breastfeeding. When considering duration after returning to work, women living in the West, who work 30 hours or less, and have more education and higher occupational complexity breastfeed longer, with Hispanics and women with difficult births breastfeeding a shorter time. These results clearly suggest that a combination of addressing social attitudes, improving prenatal health, extending maternity leave options, and providing workplace flexibility are needed to increase the initiation and duration of breastfeeding among employed women. |
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Bibliography Citation
Keck, Canada K. Initiation and Duration of Breastfeeding Among Employed Women in the United States. Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1997. |