Exploration of mothers’ perceptions about breastfeeding support at workplace employment in selected district hospitals of Kigali.

Abstract

Background: breast feeding period is recommended and several studies mentioned the gaps in supporting breast feeding mothers in workplace. The absence of workplace support and lack of facilities influence mothers to cease early breast feeding as stated in some literatures. Problem statement: The risk of morbidity and mortality related to infections are higher when the child does not breastfed well especially for the first 6 months (World Health Organization, 2016b). In Rwanda no study has been done to assess the institutional support for breastfeeding when mothers start work. The aim of the study: Is to explore mother‟ perceptions about breast feeding support at workplace in selected district hospital of Kigali. Research methodology: This is a quantitative, descriptive research using cross sectional design. The study area included three selected district hospitals of Kigali. Population was breastfeeding mothers. Convenience sampling method was used and the sample size was 127. Self-administered questionnaire was used, the analysis was done using descriptive statistics, means were compared using One-way ANOVA table to compare hospital support. Results: The overwhelming results from this study showed that women exclusively breast feeding was only 15 (11.8%), unavailability of written policies at the rate of 109 (85.8%), lack of their managers to support them (66.1%), not to have frequent breaks 122 (96%), and lack of space and supply of equipment 127(100%) were reported by mothers in the study. The overall mean score for mothers‟ perceptions in workplace was 48.7717+8.90264 comparing to the maximum total score of 100. Conclusion: The lack of organizational support, manager support, time and lack of the place were reported, further research in this domain, will be of interest.