Got Milk? A Working Mother's Challenge
Faculty Research
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that women breastfeed for at least the first year of a child's life for improved health outcomes for baby and mother. Yet previous research shows that when mothers are employed during that first year, they are more likely to cease breastfeeding. In a refereed research published in the premier Journal of Organizational Behavior, Professor Jing Zhang and her colleagues asked why some working mothers continue breastfeeding, while most don’t.
Using a longitudinal dataset from the Centers for Disease Control, they found workplace toxicity - supervisors' negative workplace remarks about breastfeeding – increases family-to-work conflict and a woman’s likelihood to discontinue exclusive breastfeeding by eight times. Conversely, workplace support – supervisor perceptions and co-worker support – improves the likelihood to continue, and decreases depressive symptoms for the employed mothers.
SOURCE: Spitzmueller, C., Wang, Z., Zhang, J., Thomas, C., Fisher, G., Matthews, R., Strathearn, L. (July (3rd Quarter/Summer) 2016). Got milk? Workplace factors related to breastfeeding among working mothers. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 37(5), 692–718. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/job.2061/abstract