BIO

I grew up in Tallahassee, Florida and always knew Florida State would be the school for me. I am currently a Nursing major with hopes of continuing my education post undergrad to become a Family Nurse Practitioner. Through my current research, I get to examine the relationship of mothers and babies' postpartum which has sparked my interest in working closely with families and all their healthcare needs. I enjoy caring for others and look forward to continuing this research to learn more about how to better support mothers postpartum.

Examining the Relationship of Postpartum Employment Status With Breastfeeding and Depression

Abstract

The relationship between a mother and her baby postpartum can be affected by many factors, such as how soon after the mother returns to work. There may be many reasons a mother returns to work, for example, for financial reasons, for adult human interaction, or a variety of other reasons. To understand how returning to work affects these mothers, each mother in this study is asked to complete a survey that asks a variety of questions including when or if a mother returns to work within 8 weeks of having her baby and how this affected the mother’s depression levels and if she continued breastfeeding, if it was implemented from the start. The data collected was used to calculate a p-value to determine significance. Since our sample size is still small, consisting of only 47 mothers, there were no relationships that achieved a significant p-value, besides the relationship between mothers not returning to work and the continuation of breastfeeding, which obtained a p-value of 0.02. This study should be continued to achieve a larger sample size and show higher significance between the effects of returning to work on breastfeeding and depression levels.

Keywords: Mother Baby Relationship Postpartum