Abstract:
Background: The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first
six month of life. However, working mothers have lower rates of exclusive breast feeding after
returning to work. In such cases, expressing breast milk is identified to be an essential practice
that can allow these mothers to continue feeding their babies during their separation.
Objective: The study aimed to determine practice of expressing breast milk and associated
factors among employed mother having children under the age of 2 in Gulelle sub city, A.A.
Methods: A quantitative cross sectional study design was adopted to involve a sample of 418
employed mothers with children under age of 2, attending well baby clinics at selected health
centers in Gulelle sub city, A.A. The data was collected using a structured and pretested
questionnaire and was coded, entered and stored using Epi info version 7.2.6.0. It was exported
to Stata version 14.0 for cleaning and analysis. Binary logistic regression was employed to
identify associated factors.
Result: Among the 418 participants in this study, 212 (51.5%, 95% CI = 46.7%-53.4%) were
expressing milk regularly or occasionally. Satisfactory knowledge on breast milk expression and
storage was attained in 278 (66.5%) of the mothers and 219(52.9%) of the mothers had favorable
attitude. Tertiary level education (AOR=2.38, 95%CI: 1.31-4.37), previous experience in
expressing breast milk (AOR=3.49, 95%CI: 2.02-6.02,) and having satisfactory knowledge about
expressing breast milk (AOR=1.75, 95%CI: 1.09-2.80) were the identified significant factors
Conclusion: Expressing breast milk is not an uncommon practice among working mothers and it
is associated with attaining higher educational level, satisfactory knowledge and previous
experience with expressing. This underscores the importance of educating women, and
increasing awareness concerning breast milk expression through various perinatal approaches.