It is clear that for the mother it is best to breastfeed and for the baby to receive that breast milk, but what about the companies where the mothers work? During the World Breastfeeding Week the International Labor Organization (ILO) has joined the celebrations with a claim: that women can breastfeed their children in the workplace.
And it is that allowing women to breastfeed their children at work is good for both mothers and their babies, but also for companies or employers.
The director of the ILO Department of Worker Protection said that
Employers who give mothers the time to breastfeed, and allocate a space for this purpose with adequate hygienic conditions benefit in terms of increased productivity due to a decrease in parental leave absenteeism (thanks to good health of babies), a higher rate of return to work and better employee morale.
If, as the WHO points out and is widely demonstrated by scientific literature, breastfeeding is the best way to provide newborns with the defenses and nutrients they need, society should put less obstacles the woman will exclusively breastfeed the baby until six months and with complementary food until two years minimum.
But the truth is that many mothers have yet to decide between returning to work and abandoning breastfeeding or taking the risk of losing their jobs. Thus, the decrease in breastfeeding among working mothers can be seen.
Therefore, the possibility of expand maternity leave in many places, since the six months still seem somewhat utopian.
To date, 25 countries have ratified the ILO Convention on the Protection of Maternity, which establishes, among other provisions, at least one daily break for breastfeeding or a reduction in working hours to allow breastfeeding.
On the other hand, the ILO has adopted a ratification that states that, as far as possible, breastfeeding structures should be made available at or near the workplace (and we are not talking about toilets). But realistically few laws and few effective practices take into account many of those agreed points.
Of course, all this in the case of jobs that are not incompatible, for safety reasons, with breastfeeding. Because otherwise, the losses due to breastfeeding risk.
In addition, and to see if politicians hear us, it is proven that children who receive breast milk in the first months of life reduce hospital admissions by half. So these health benefits translate into economic savings, because babies visit less primary care centers and hospitals, with consequent savings.
Are not enough reasons for society to get down to work and make it easier for babies to be breastfed, even by working mothers who have it more complicated?
It is certainly a worthwhile task, and hopefully you will continue listening to this topic to see if sooner or later it is finally possible for everyone to know that allowing women to breastfeed their babies at work is good for everyone. Which does not mean that you have to go back to work four weeks after giving birth, of course ...
