مؤسسة الشرق الأوسط للنشر العلمي
عادةً ما يتم الرد في غضون خمس دقائق
Background: With enlarged industrialization, more women have joined the workforce. Much evidences have shown that one of the barriers to breastfeeding is the work status of mothers. Aim: This study aimed to examine the support of exclusive breastfeeding among working mothers within their workplaces in Oman. Methods: This study used a cross-sectional survey. It involved working mothers who were in full-time work. The age of the women was ranged from 23-49 years. Purposive sampling was used and the sample size was 148 women. The questionnaire from the Employee Perceptions of Breastfeeding Support was used to collect data after validation by two experts. The Cronbach’s alpha of this scale’s (internal consistency) was 0.840. Results: Breastfeeding support within workplaces for lactating mothers was very limited. There was no clear legislation or policy and lactation rooms available at mothers’ workplaces. The data showed that availability of time for breastfeeding was a problem and it received the highest score (Mean=3.35±.445), followed by average scores for manager’s support (Mean=3.04±.319) and organizational support (Mean=2.91±.202). However, Co-worker’s support (Mean=2.42±.393) received the lowest score. Conclusion: This study would be helpful for the ministries in Oman to support working mothers who wanted to exclusively breastfeed their infants. Also, the working places would guarantee that their institutions would be free of harassment against working mothers who would like to breastfeed their infants exclusively by using appropriate mechanisms. The head of work at different working sectors must provide a breastfeeding room with expressing facilities at the workplaces to be used by working mothers and these services have to be private, clean, and comfortable for working mothers. The breastfeeding room should also include hand washing and milk storage services.