Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Correspondence: frederic. Background: The benefits of breastfeeding are widely known; however, continuation after returning to work RTW is not.
We aimed to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the prevalence of breastfeeding after RTW. The secondary objectives were to compare the economic statuses between continents. Method: PubMed, Cochrane Library, Base, and Embase were searched until 1 September , and two independent reviewers selected the studies and collated the data. To be included, articles needed to describe our primary outcome, i.
Results: We included 14 studies, analyzing 42, women. Stratification by continents and by GDP per capita also showed huge heterogeneity. Conclusion: Breastfeeding after RTW is widely heterogeneous across the world. Despite economic status playing a role in breastfeeding after RTW, cultural aspects seem influential. The lack of data regarding breastfeeding after RTW in most countries demonstrates the strong need of data to inform effective preventive strategies.
Breastfeeding provides multiple health advantages for the child infections, malocclusion, and intelligence and their mother breast cancer [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ], with economic and social benefits as well cost savings for parents, employers, and society, as well as the parent—child relationship [ 3 , 5 , 6 , 7 ].
During this breastfeeding transition time, returning to work RTW is common for mothers who have to manage work and breastfeeding. RTW represents one of the main reasons for stopping breastfeeding [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]. Combining breastfeeding and work may be hard for mothers depending on their working conditions [ 13 ], sociocultural heritage and gender role ideology [ 14 ], public health policies [ 15 ], and economy and lobby groups [ 16 ].
