Abstract:
Background: Breastfeeding is the simplest and most reliable means of feeding infants to their maximum satisfaction and it reduces the likelihood of childhood illnesses such as pneumonia, diarrhoea. EBF in particular, promotes the optimal health of the infant in diverse ways. Although there is evidence on exclusive breastfeeding among professional working nursing mothers and mothers working in the informal sector, there has been no comparative studies between these two categories of women in Ghana. The study aimed at exploring the prevalence and barriers to EBF among informal working nursing mothers and mothers working in the formal sector in Ghana in order to bridge the knowledge gap and add to existing findings on barriers to exclusive breastfeeding.
Methods: The study adopted a facility based cross-sectional quantitative study design where simple random sampling technique was used to select 115 informal sector nursing mothers and 114 formal sector working mothers aged 15-45 years who had children between the ages of 6 and 24 months. A structured questionnaire was used to gather the data for the study. Descriptive statistics, and inferential was used in analysis of data.
Results: All 229 respondents from the Postnatal unit of the Mamprobi Polyclinic breastfed their infants during their most recent birth. Out of this number, 23.1% of mothers working in the formal sector and 76.9%of mothers working in the informal sector exclusively breastfed. After controlling for potential confounders, factors that significantly predicted exclusive breastfeeding were; health condition of baby within first six months, mothers occupation and mothers hospitalization within six months after delivery .An association was also found between, marital status, maternal age, level of education and practice of exclusive breastfeeding. Conclusion: The research revealed that EBF practice is very low among nursing mothers who work in the formal sector. Factors which affect exclusive breast feeding practice among women in the formal sector therefore need to be urgently addressed through interventions like advocacy for change in policies, public health education as well as increased support at home and in working institutions to promote exclusively breastfeeding
