Maternal employment and breastfeeding.

A high percentage of mothers return to work during their infant's first year of life. Recent studies indicate that mothers who return to work early and for more than 20 hours a week wean earlier, on the average, than other women. However, within employment subcategories, women vary widely in breastfeeding duration. Studies done in England and Minnesota indicate that variables from Ajzen and Fishbein's Behavioral Intention Model (BIM) can be helpful in explaining some of the variations in length of breastfeeding that are not explained by work-related variables. The variables in this model are motivational in nature. Clinicians can apply research to practice by assessing selected factors that have been demonstrated to predict breastfeeding duration, eg, breastfeeding knowledge, work-related variables, and motivational variables. Then interventions can be focused on gaps in a woman's knowledge or motivational system and on what she needs to know to return to work and breastfeed.