Op-Ed: Breastfeeding- Not for the poor?

Friday, August 7, 2015

A group of women walk back and forth. Their feet spread out rice on a cement yard so that it can dry in the sun before the heavy Bangladeshi monsoon rain soaks the grains again. These strong women are part of 20 million workingwomen in Bangladesh. They are part of a remarkable number of women powering the country as it strives to move from its status as developing country to middle income country.

But the mothers also face a perpetual dilemma: earn money or breastfeed?

These two things should be basic rights for all women: to work and to have the support to breastfeed.

In Bangladesh, there has remarkable progress in ensuring that women are able to be mothers and to work. The government of Bangladesh has set a policy for 6 months paid maternity leave for government staff, and aims to ensure that health facilities and government offices have breastfeeding spaces. This illustrates how the government is indeed being a leader and setting an example for the other organizations working in the country.

This year’s World Breastfeeding Week celebration chose the theme of Breastfeeding and Work: Let’s Make it Work! The theme is very relevant to the situation that workingwomen in Asia Pacific face, where – according to UN Women – there are 50 million home-based workers in South Asia, of whom 4 out of 5 are women. More than 80 per cent of women in the region are also employed in vulnerable jobs, work that typically lacks the protection of labour laws.

The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action stresses the importance of maternity protection, which should include maternity leave, maternity/cash benefits, health protection, job protection and non-discrimination, breastfeeding breaks, and breastfeeding facilities. While this is the ideal, a 2012 study by the International Labour Organization found that only one-third of all countries made these maternity protections available.

It’s scientifically proven that breast milk is critical for a child’s health, growth, and development.

This global movement aims to raise awareness that breastfeeding is indeed the “norm”, is best for a baby’s first two years of life, and that exclusive breastfeeding without additional food or drink in the first 6 months of life is best.

Looking back

If we look closely at history, we see a very interesting trend in breastfeeding habits. In the past, women breastfed and worked at the same time. There were factories that provided space for women to breastfeed at work, with a family member bringing the baby to the work site.

After the introduction and the huge marketing of infant formula, we saw a trend where some women preferred to give their babies infant formula, even though based on evidence, only 2% of woman/babies cannot breastfeed due to very rare and specific conditions.

Bottle-feeding was considered a trendy thing to do, a modern symbol and also a practical solution for women who wanted to return to work. Now, with more information and the availability of lactation counseling services, women in urban areas and the more informed ones, try as much as possible to breastfeed their babies.

However, as what often happens with health information and services, the poor are the last to enjoy the proper information and the benefits. This sadly happens where most of the women are working in rural areas, urban slums, or informal sectors, such as in agriculture, factories, home industries or working as domestic helpers.

So, the key message for this year’s World Breastfeeding Week celebration is very strong on equity issues. We want to ensure every woman, whether they are rich or poor, is protected and supported with a maternity protection policy to enable them taking adequate paid maternity leave, able to breastfeed or pump her breast milk in a clean and private space, and get the breastfeeding or pumping breaks that she needs.

Starting a conversation about advocacy issues such as this is not an easy task for any organization. It is much easier to encourage other organizations and employers to provide better maternity protection, when we ourselves still have work to do.

So we’ve aimed to lead by example.

Beginning in 2013, World Vision offices in South Asia Pacific and East Asia regions have started the Mother Baby Friendly Office movement. We’ve made adjustments to our policies and practices to promote and protect breastfeeding. We are still on the journey to ensure all World Vision staff are benefitting from good staff care and maternity protection policy, but the journey has begun. Everyone can support and make a difference, and it can start with you.


References:
1. Factsheet Asia Pacific, Progress of the World’s Women 2011-2012, United nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Full report
2. World Breastfeeding Week 2015. See action folders

About the author | Esther Indriani, MPH - Regional Health and Nutrition Advisor, South Asia and Pacific Region. Esther has 16 years of experience in health and nutrition programming in Asia. She holds a Master of Public Health Degree from Maastricth University and Postgraduate Diploma in Food and Nutrition Security from Wageningen University. Since 2008, she has been working for World Vision South Asia and Pacific Regional Office with the main roles of supporting national offices in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of health and nutrition programs, especially related to integrated, multi-sector approaches.