INTRODUCTION: Studies carried out on breastfeeding and working women are difficult to compare. Breastfeeding practices among formally employed women in Brazil have not been much studied, despite important changes in public policies such as the extension of maternity leave to 120 days. OBJECTIVES: A description of breastfeeding patterns among women employed in factories and the constraints and opportunities involved in conciliating breastfeeding and work. MATERIAL AND METHODS: An exploratory study was carried out in 13 factories in S. Paulo city in 1994, where all women in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy were interviewed (76), and re-interviewed (69) when they went back to work (around 5,4 months after delivery). RESULTS: Breastfeeding initiation was found in 97% of women and the median duration was 150 days. The exclusive breastfeeding and predominant breastfeeding rates were, respectively, 10 and 70 days of median duration. Higher socio-economic status and nursery facilities and the existence of a place in which to extract and store the mother's milk at the workplace were factors associated with longer duration of breastfeeding. Other factors such as flex-time and work out of the production-line also showed a significant relation to longer duration of breastfeeding in the factories studied. CONCLUSION: Maternity leave is widely taken advantage of and highly benefitial for the majority of working women as regards breastfeeding, but other factors are important in maitaining lactation, such as circunstances which permit closer mother-child contact and/or the extraction of human milk during the working day.
Breastfeeding; Women, working