Breastfeeding and working, motto of the 2015 World Breastfeeding Week
The World Breastfeeding Week It is the largest breastfeeding celebration in the world. In most of the more than 170 countries that sign up for this event, the World Breastfeeding Week takes place between August 1 and 7, date commemorating the Innocenti Declaration, developed by WHO and UNICEF to promote and support breastfeeding.
In Europe, on the other hand, since August is a holiday month, the events associated with the World Breastfeeding Week are usually moved to week 41 of the year, that is, the first week of October.
This year, the World Breastfeeding Week (SMLM) will focus on the reconciliation between work and breastfeeding. The motto of the campaign is, Breastfeed and work, let's make it possible! The main objective is that working mothers, belonging to any sector of the economy, can combine their work obligations with the upbringing of their children and, especially, with the period of breastfeeding so that they can breastfeed their children successfully.
The objectives of this World Week of Breastfeeding
The objectives of the World Breastfeeding Week are five, all of them focused on improving the working conditions of the mother so that she can combine work with breastfeeding without it being a problem:
1. Unite multi-dimensional efforts of all sectors to make it easier for women to work and breastfeed everywhere.
2. Develop actions by employers that are Friendly with Families / Babies / and Mothers, and actively support working mothers to continue breastfeeding.
3. Report on the latest advances in the protection and protection of Maternity Rights throughout the world and raise awareness of the need to strengthen national laws and their application.
4. Share, facilitate and strengthen practices that help breastfeeding of women who work in the informal sectors.
5. Commit and work with specific groups, for example, Rights of Women Workers, Women, Youth and Trade Unions, to protect the breastfeeding rights of women in their workplaces.
Business and motherhood
To promote initiatives in which companies and mothers work together to facilitate breastfeeding, the Breastfeeding Committee of the AEP (Spanish Association of Pediatrics) has designed an information brochure in conjunction with other professional associations and the Ministry of Health in the that give a series of recommendations to companies to incorporate a policy of support for breastfeeding.
Among the recommendations they give to companies are:
- Give rest periods so that mothers can breastfeed their children or express their milk.
- That mothers be offered the option to change their working hours, to make your schedule more flexible or to do part of the work from home, so that they can combine breastfeeding with work.
- That spaces are enabled within the company so that mothers can breastfeed or express milk with comfort and hygiene.
If the companies are large, they are encouraged to enable breastfeeding rooms with the necessary equipment for mothers. It should be a private area with a washbasin, a small refrigerator to keep milk during the working day, and comfortable chairs for mothers to extract their milk or, if the company allows it, they can breastfeed their children in a quiet and private space .
Benefits for all
All these initiatives are beneficial not only for mothers, but for companies and in general for society as a whole. The creation of a collective conscience that understands breastfeeding as something natural and necessary will facilitate its integration in all social environments.
The adoption of pro-lactation policies in companies, in addition to improving the image of the company towards its workers, facilitates the reincorporation into the work of mothers. They will be more efficient during the workday by not having to worry about how they will breastfeed their children, improving the rate of return to work after maternal leave and increasing the productivity of the company.
But, without a doubt, the most important thing is that the reconciliation of breastfeeding and work is very beneficial for the mother, the son and the family. The better the policies that favor prolonged breastfeeding, the more mothers can continue with it for as long as they want without having to give up their professional activity. This supposes not to see reduced the purchasing power of the family and that the mothers do not have to choose between continuing to work or continue breastfeeding.
Work-life balance allows mothers to develop their full potential as professionals while embracing the responsibilities of motherhood.Since the Innocenti Declaration was issued, many things have been achieved, but there is still a long way to go to achieve a full reconciliation between work and breastfeeding.
María José Madarnás. Easy Maternity
