New Delhi: Lack of lactation rooms at the workplace present a key challenge for new mothers who resume work from office post their maternity, said experts on Monday as part of the breastfeeding week, calling for better provisions for women.
World Breastfeeding Week is observed globally from August 1 to 7 every year to raise awareness about the importance of breastfeeding and to empower and support mothers who breastfeed.
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The theme this year is: 'Let's make breastfeeding and work, work!'
"Most often, workplaces lack a designated area or nursing room where women can express milk in privacy. This is a big deterrent for women to rejoin work after their maternity leave. For new mothers who must choose between caring for their infant while nursing and concentrating on their professional development at work, a lack of flexibility, the inability to work from home, and long work hours can add to the troubles," Dr Deepa Mohan, Paediatrician, and Neonatologist, Motherhood Hospitals, told IANS. Mohan said: "Lack of facilities to continue breastfeeding, long intervals of not feeding/ pumping milk result in low milk output."
In addition, "difficulties in expressing milk at workplaces timely, mothers also suffer with engorged breasts which can be painful for the mother.
As a result, "unacceptably, only few women continue to breastfeed their babies after returning to work and many women cease breastfeeding quickly after returning to work," she said. Another issue that women face is the storage of milk at workplaces.
"Most of the companies or workplaces don’t provide refrigerators for storage of expressed or pumped milk, making breast feeding a challenge to the mothers. Absence of lactation rooms and less number of feeding breaks results in inadequate sucking of the baby which slowly reduces the milk production due to decreased stimulation of the brain reflex," Dr Babita Maturi, Gynaecologist at Apollo Clinic, told IANS.
In such cases, milk can be placed temporarily in an insulated cooler with ice packs or ice box, Mohan said. However, it is easier said than done. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, infants have to be exclusively breastfed for the first six months and continue breastfeeding up to the age of two years or beyond.