Effects of workplaces receiving “accreditation of health workplaces” on breastfeeding promotion, parental leave, and gender equality

Objectives: Work is often a barrier for women to continue breastfeeding after they have given birth. Breastfeeding support is an important part of workplace health promotion. We investigated the implementation of breastfeeding promotion and gender equality polices in workplaces with the Taiwan Badge of Accredited Healthy Workplace. Methods: Our samples consisted of 1648 corporations with the badge of Accredited Healthy Workplace issued by the Bureau of Health Promotion from 2007 to 2008. Concomitantly, 2000 corporations without accreditation were randomly selected from the National Business Directory as the control group. Data were collected from self-administered questionnaires. Logistic regression was used to examine the association with breast-feeding promotion and other variables in Taiwanese workplaces. Results: Members of accredited group of 1089/1648 (66.1%) and the control group of 526/2000 (26.3%) responded to the questionnaire. The accredited companies had more mother-friendly settings, including breastfeeding policies and documents, appropriate breastmilk preserving equipment and settings in the workplace. In the accredited group, breastfeeding rate of mothers returning to work after giving birth was 64.3% in 2008 (1 year after giving birth) and 60.4% in 2009 (1 year after giving birth), while the rate of the control group was 59.1% in 2008 and 51% in 2009. Conclusion: Accredited corporations are better at breastfeeding support than those of the control group. This might be related to the company size, location, and the implementation of tobacco control and/or occupational health promotion policies, which may increase awareness of healthy workplaces and influence maternal protection positively.