Maternity leave and exclusive breastfeeding
Karina Abibi Rimes1, Maria Inês Couto de Oliveira2, Cristiano Siqueira Boccolini3
1Universidade Federal Fluminense. Instituto de Saúde Coletiva. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Saúde Coletiva. Niterói, RJ, Brasil.
Objective:
To analyze the association between maternity leave and exclusive breastfeeding and to estimate the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding in children under six months of life.
Methods:
Cross-sectional study, with mothers of children under six months of life, attended in primary health care units with Breast Milk Collection Services in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2013 (n = 429). We analyzed characteristics concerning: maternal sociodemographic aspects, household, prenatal care, childbirth, maternal lifestyle, the child, health care, and infant feeding. Adjusted prevalence ratios (APR) were obtained by Poisson regression with robust variance according to hierarchical approach, and we kept in the final model variables that were associated (p ≤ 0.05) with exclusive breastfeeding (outcome).
Results:
Among the interviewed mothers, 23.1% were on maternity leave and 17.2% were working. The prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding was 50.1%. The maternal work with maternity leave was associated with higher prevalence of the outcome (APR = 1.91; 95%CI 1.32-2.78), compared with mothers who worked without maternity leave.
Conclusions:
Maternity leave has contributed to the practice of exclusive breastfeeding for children under six months of life, which indicates the importance of this benefit in protecting exclusive breastfeeding for women inserted in the formal labor market.
Related Concept Videos
Leaving Groups
In general, in a nucleophilic substitution reaction, a nucleophile displaces a functional group, called the leaving group, from the substrate to give a substituted product. A leaving group departs the substrate molecule through heterolytic cleavage, taking the pair of electrons with it to become a relatively stable weak base in the form of an anion or a neutral molecule.
In a...
The Pauli Exclusion Principle
Size-Exclusion Chromatography
Silica particles offer advantages such as rigidity,...
Basic Plant Anatomy: Roots, Stems, and Leaves
Animal Mitochondrial Genetics
Crossing Over
The homologous pairs of sister chromosomes—one from the maternal and one from the paternal genome—then begin to align alongside each other lengthwise, matching corresponding DNA positions in a process...


