Relationship between Occupation and Mother’s Parity Status with Attitude towards Breastfeeding

Abstract

A B S T R A C T Double roles for working mothers caused stress which effects on their attitude towards breastfeeding practice. The objective of this study was to identify the correlation between mother’s employment and parity and attitudes towards breastfeeding among mothers in Panti district, Jember regency. A crosssectional study was conducted among 273 mothers who have infants 0-6 months using stratified random sampling. Respondents’ characteristics and attitudes towards breastfeeding were measured using a questionnaire. A chisquare test was used to analyze the data. The results showed most of the mother was housewives (80,2%), most of the mother were multipara (64,5%) and most of the respondents have sufficient attitudes towards breastfeeding (90,8%). There were no relationship between mother’s employment and attitudes towards breastfeeding (χ2= 2,089; p-value= 0,352). However, there were significant relationship between maternal’s parity and attitudes towards breastfeeding (χ2= 14,050; p-value= 0,001). This study showed there was no relationship between the mother’s employment and attitudes towards breastfeeding, although maternal’s parity showed different results. Therefore, family planning program should be improved correctly to support mothers breastfeed their babies until the six month age to achieve exclusive breastfeeding practice. Keywords: attitudes towards breastfeeding, mother employment, parity