Communication Commons^™

A Positive Deviance Inquiry On Communicative Acts And Behaviors That Enable Working Mothers To Breastfeed, Jessica Molinar Munoz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The benefits of breastfeeding have been well documented for both mother and child. Breastfeeding provides optimal nutrition for an infant and includes decreased risk for numerous diseases and illnesses. However, there is evidence that when mothers return back to work from maternity leave, they often stop breastfeeding. The present research project utilizes the Positive Deviance approach to find working mothers who have successfully breastfed their children exclusively for six months and to determine what enables these mothers to continue to breastfeed past one year of birth while working full time. The purpose is to understand why some working mothers, who …