Abstract

Objective: The study was conducted to investigate the attitudes of working and non-working mothers, who have babies aged 6-12 months, regarding infant feeding.
Method: The study was carried out as a descriptive study in between September 15, 2013 and January 25, 2014 in three regions of Family Health Center (FHC) that accommodate mostly working women in a city center located in east Turkey. The study population consisted of the mothers having babies aged 6-12 months residing in these regions at the time of the research. The whole study population was studied without selecting any sample group. The mothers who have not accepted to participate in the research were not included in the study. The study was conducted with 78 working mothers and 123 non-working mothers. Data were collected by the researcher through a questionnaire prepared based on the literature through face-to-face interview method. Approval of the ethics committee, official permissions and informed consent were obtained from the mothers to conduct the study. The data were analyzed in the SPSS 18.0 software by percentage distribution and chi-square test.
Results: In the study, statistically significant difference was found between working and non-working mothers on the first food given to babies, on giving temporary supplementary foods in the first three days, planned duration of breastfeeding, peak times of breastfeeding, breast cleaning before breastfeeding, performing breast rotation, and milking and storing breast milk factors (p

Key words: Working mother, nonworking mother, breastfeeding, breast milk, infant feeding