ABSTRACT
Background: Formally employed mothers are vulnerable to early cessation of exclusive breastfeeding. Kenyan national policy requires employer-provided maternity benefits and workplace lactation supports. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate willingness to use nationally mandated workplace lactation supports among formally employed women in Kenya. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey among 304 mothers of children ages ≤12 mo in Naivasha, Kenya, who were currently formally employed and employed before delivery of the most recent child to assess availability of and willingness to use current and potential future workplace lactation supports. Results: The most available reported workplace lactation supports were schedule flexibility to arrive late or leave early (87.8%) or visit a child to nurse during lunch (24.7%), followed by company-funded community-based daycare (7.6%). Few (<4.0%) reported the availability of lactation rooms, on-site daycares, transportation to breastfeed during lunch, refrigerators for expressed milk, or manual or electric breastmilk pumps. If made available, >80% of mothers reported moderate or strong willingness to use flexible schedules to arrive late or leave early, break during lunch, and transportation to visit a child to nurse. A moderate proportion reported strong willingness to use on-site daycares (63.8%), company-funded community-based daycare (56.9%), on-site lactation rooms (60.5%), refrigeration for expressed milk (49.3%), manual (40.5%), and electric pumps (27.6%). Mothers expressed fear of missing production targets and reported more willingness to use on-site compared with off-site daycare to save transportation time but noted concerns about chemical exposures and early arrival times with young infants. Hesitations regarding the use of on-site lactation rooms included concerns about privacy, milk identification and storage, and use and sharing of pumps. Conclusions: Flexible schedules were the workplace lactation supports in highest demand among formally employed mothers. Maternal willingness to use lactation rooms, refrigeration, and pumping equipment was moderate to low, suggesting sensitization may help to increase demand as the implementation of Kenyan policies moves forward.
ABSTRACT
There has been wide application of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to understanding motivation and regulation of eating and weight. Yet, there are no measures of the socioemotional-contextual family conditions in the eating domain, which are identified in SDT and should influence development of eating behavior in young children. Two studies were conducted to develop and validate a measure to assess the SDT socioemotional-contextual dimensions of food-related parenting. These dimensions were derived from extensions of SDT, which argue that autonomy support, warmth, and appropriate structure (as well as low coercion, hostility, and chaos) are the conditions that will fulfill children's psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness and competence, resulting in more intrinsic motivation and better self-regulation of behavior. In the first study, 230 parents completed the food-related parenting items in reference to their 4- to 8-year-old children, and the factor structure and construct and convergent validity of the items were examined. Generally consistent with SDT, factors suggested 4 food-related socioemotional parenting contexts of supportiveness (autonomy support/warmth), coerciveness (coercion/hostility), structure, and chaos. In a second study of 221 parents, a 24-item Parent Socioemotional Context of Feeding Questionnaire (PSCFQ) was confirmed to have a 4-factor structure. In each study, good reliability was found for each subscale. Construct, convergent, and divergent validity were supported by small to moderate correlations with aspects of child feeding (e.g., restriction) and general parenting styles. PSCFQ subscales were not associated with child BMI, family income or parent education. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).