We are celebrating World Breastfeeding Week under the motto "Breastfeeding and working", a road full of obstacles given the few facilities faced by mothers who want to continue doing so after returning to work, but possible.
There is a long way to go, many things that should be done and improved so that mothers could breastfeed their babies for longer. Let's see what mothers need to make breastfeeding and work possible and not an entelechy.
A maternity leave of six months
First and foremost. WHO and other organizations recommend six months of exclusive breastfeeding on demand and then supplemented with solid foods for at least two years. But how can you breastfeed every time you ask if you have to separate for hours from him to go to work? Impossible. Pure logic, right?
Breastfeeding is not just food. It provides other things as necessary as nutrients for the baby. It is also contact, heat, smell, closeness, pampering, comfort ... It is the best for the baby both from the nutritional point of view and of course, affective and immunological level. It is biological gold, an intelligent substance that covers the needs of your baby at every stage of its growth.
Even so, companies and authorities do not understand the true importance of breastfeeding for society. And if they don't want to see it from a social and human point of view, unless they understand it with figures: prolonging breastfeeding would save the health system millions of euros.
The mothers they shouldn't have to give up breastfeeding to get back to work, and many do not, but with great effort. In Spain we have been asking for 32 years to extend maternity leave to 32 weeks (you can sign the petition here) to be able to offer the baby what he needs for a longer time, both your milk and your care, even if you are a working woman.
Business support
Facilitate that working mothers can breastfeed it's not doing them a favor. With breast milk, babies grow healthier and absenteeism is reduced in the first years of the child's life, therefore, in the long run, it is a benefit.
It also affects the productivity of the company. As commented by Carissa F. Etienne, director of PAHO / WHO, "Employers can also benefit from these policies, as these policies will lead to happier, more reliable and productive workers".
And in the support of companies, we can also include work environment support. Do not look badly at the mother who is absent from going to breastfeed her baby or to express the milk. Women need the support of the company, but also the compression and sensitivity of their partners.
Work schedule flexibility
Once the mother returns to work, she cannot be separated from her baby for too many hours like that, suddenly. Both of them still need to be very close, so companies should offer flexible schedules so that Mom could spend more time together.
Reduction of working hours, excused absences for breastfeeding and allowing the mother to work from home are some solutions that companies should offer.
Adequate spaces to express milk
Mothers should not have to go into a bath to express milk. It is an uncomfortable, unhygienic site. Would you like them to prepare your food in a bathroom? Deserve a decent, clean, quiet and comfortable place to extract the food they will give their babies.
Companies with more than 50 employees should have adequately equipped breastfeeding rooms, and smaller ones should offer at least a decent and intimate space.
Storage or shipment of the extracted milk
Once extracted, the milk requires certain preservation guarantees to ensure that it will arrive in optimal conditions for the baby.
Companies should have a refrigerator where milk could be stored or a system for sending the milk extracted to their home to reach the baby, as does IBM who sends home the milk that their workers are extracted when they are traveling for job.
Children's centers in the workplace
The closeness of the mother with the baby is key during the first years of life, so that there was a safe and adequate place in mom's work where the children were cared for is a measure that would facilitate breastfeeding much more and allow Mothers work much quieter and at ease.
These are some of the specific resources that mothers need to breastfeed and work their babies. On a global level, true maternity-friendly reconciliation policies are needed that enable mothers to do the most important work of their lives.
If companies, employers and authorities can understand that facilitate the working mother who loves her baby has a benefit for all, maybe things change. Hopefully.
