Outcomes of a hospital-based employee lactation program

Little has been published about employee lactation support in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Philadelphia, PA, has a comprehensive employee lactation program. The objective of this study was to describe the breastfeeding practices of our employees and compare these results with national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.

The human resources department generated a list of all employees who filed for maternity leave between 2007 and 2011. These employees were contacted confidentially via e-mail to complete an electronic-based (SurveyMonkey.com) questionnaire. An initial message and three reminder messages were sent over a 3-month period during the last quarter of 2012, with 545 women completing the survey (response rate, 40%).

Women who responded to the survey had significantly higher breastfeeding initiation rates compared with national CDC data (94.5% vs. 76.9%; p<0.0001). At 6 months, significantly more CHOP employees were breastfeeding (78.6% vs. 47.2%; p<0.0001). At 12 months 32.4% of CHOP employees were still breastfeeding compared with CDC data of 25.5% (p=0.0003). Additionally, over 20% of CHOP employees breastfed their infants for over 12 months (no national data for comparison).

Within CHOP's comprehensive employee lactation program, women achieved breastfeeding milestones that well exceeded national data and the Healthy People 2020 targets for breastfeeding initiation and duration. CHOP's employee lactation program can serve as a model for other institutions.