MATERNITY LEAVE AND EXCLUSIVE BREASTFEEDING PRACTICES AMONG WORKING NURSING MOTHERS IN WA MUNICIPALITY

Abstract

Exclusive breast feeding has been earmarked to be one of the important ways of ensuring child's health, unfortunately, owing to work demands, most nursing working mothers are likely to fail to adhere to such practice. The study was motivated by the fact that not much literature is available in the subject for Ghana's situation. The study design used for this research was mixed method. The study population consisted of Working Nursing Mothers (WNM) aged 40 or below who are in full time employment and working within Wa Municipality. The formal institutions within the municipality were stratified into private and public institutions and snow-ball sampling was used to select participants. Data was sought and obtained through semi-structured interview and questionnaire scheduled for 72 working nursing mothers of children of age 4 to 24 months. The major findings are that; out of the mothers studied, 47.2 percent indicated that they practiced EBF; the main challenges are that work hours were not compatible with EBF, some co-workers were resentful of mothers who had to close early to attend to EBF; unavailability of private room for breast feeding and work place environment were not save for infants. The respondents also felt that combining EBF and employment worth the trouble and they will recommend it to others because they have done something special for their infants that no one else could do. However, infant diarrhea and severe headache and chest pains were mentioned as new problems encountered by WNM which were not reported in the reviewed literature. The study concluded that WNM find it extremely difficult to exclusively breastfeed their infants, short maternity leave and absence of child care facilities undermines the practice of exclusive breastfeeding. The study therefore recommended among other things that government must guarantee that work place is free of harassment and discrimination against working nursing mother through appropriate mechanisms and employers must provide breastfeeding and expressing facilities at the work place to be used by breastfeeding employees.