Personal breastfeeding behavior of physician mothers is associated with their clinical breastfeeding advocacy.
BACKGROUND
Despite excellent breastfeeding initiation rates, physician mothers as a group are at risk of premature breastfeeding cessation. The main obstacles and reasons for breastfeeding cessation among physician mothers are work-related. We conducted this study to further explore physician mothers' personal infant feeding decisions and behavior as well as their clinical breastfeeding advocacy.


METHODS
We interviewed 80 physician mothers, mainly affiliated with the University of Florida College of Medicine (Gainesville, FL), using a questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were calculated with SPSS software version 16 (SPSS, Chicago, IL).


RESULTS
The 80 mothers had a total of 152 children and were able to successfully initiate breastfeeding for 97% of the infants. Although maternal goal for duration of breastfeeding had been 12 months or more for 57% of the infants, only 34% of the children were actually still breastfeeding at 12 months. In 43% of cases, physician mothers stated that breastfeeding cessation was due to demands of work. Furthermore, physician mothers who reported actively promoting breastfeeding among their female patients and housestaff had significantly longer personal breastfeeding duration compared with physician mothers who denied actively promoting breastfeeding.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings not only emphasize the discrepancy between physician mothers' breastfeeding duration goal and their actual breastfeeding duration, but also highlight the association between their personal breastfeeding success and their own active breastfeeding advocacy. Whether this association is causal cannot be determined by the current study and can be examined further by prospective studies. Our results support developing and implementing workplace strategies and programs to promote breastfeeding duration among physician mothers returning to work.
Department of Medicine, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida 32610, USA. Maryam.sattari@medicine.ufl.edu
Maryam
M
Sattari
David
D
Levine
Dan
D
Neal
Janet R
JR
Serwint
D001942:Breast Feeding / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008425:Maternal Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D008429:Maternal Welfare; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011181:Postnatal Care; D011247:Pregnancy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D016526:Workload