Pressure of work distracts mothers from breastfeeding

Many Kenyan working women are unable to exclusively breastfeed their infants for the first six months of their lives due to pressure of work.

Assumpta Ndumi, Save the Children’s Regional Nutrition Advisor, said women in the informal sector are the worst affected, with some resuming their daily routines immediately after delivery.

“Work is one of the main barriers of exclusive breastfeeding with women in informal employment choosing to get back to work immediately after delivery as they need to earn a living.

In most cases those employed in the informal sector are not provided with any maternity benefits. This is the case with single parents or where the male spouses are not able to provide enough for the family,” said Ms Ndumi.

Gladys Mugambi, Head of Nutrition and Dietetics at the Ministry of Health, echoed Ndumi’s sentiments, adding that there was pressure for women in formal employment to go back to work after maternity leave for fear of dismissal.

Pregnant women are allowed three months maternity leave under the Kenyan law. However, this may change if a Bill seeking to have the time extended to six months is passed into law.

“These women do not do this because they are putting their jobs first, they still want to maintain independency especially where they are single parents. Unfortunately, most workplaces in Kenya do not have nursing rooms where mothers can privately express milk and store it safely in a refrigerator, this shortfall forces most mothers to resort to complimentary foods,” said Ms Mugambi.

A new human resource policy launched last July has given public institutions three years to set up day-care facilities.

Employers will also be required to provide break intervals, space to enable lactating mothers express milk, and refrigeration facilities.

Breastfeeding is essential for early childhood development as it supports healthy brain development, decreases risk of non-communicable diseases including childhood asthma, obesity, diabetes and heart disease later in life.

Unicef recommends that a baby be put on the breast within the first hour of life but this rarely happens, especially for mothers who undergo Caesarean section.

Most children are breast-fed after seven to eight hours.

According to Unicef, only 51 per cent of children under the age of six months in eastern and southern Africa are exclusively breastfed.

Data released by the 2016 Human Development Report indicates that Kenya doubled the number of exclusively breastfed infants below the age of six months to 61 per cent.

However, Kenya trails Rwanda which recorded a jump from 84.9 per cent in 2015 to 87.3 per cent, and Zambia whose rate rose from 60.9 per cent to 72.5 per cent.

Uganda’s rate remained constant at 63.2 per cent, while Tanzania’s fell by 8.7 per cent to 41.1 per cent.

The growing number of children being exclusively breastfed for the first months of their lives in Kenya is due to various measures put in place by the government and other stakeholders to encourage nursing mothers to wait before introducing food to infants.

A law passed in September 2012 by Kenyan legislators forbids health workers from accepting gifts from formula manufacturers.

“Prohibiting marketing of baby formulas has worked well for the exclusive breastfeeding campaign by the government and we anticipate that the number of children being exclusively breastfed will grow in the coming years,” said Ms Mugambi.