Exclusive breastfeeding and the call for a review of maternity leave in GHANA
For many working mothers in Ghana, the joy of welcoming a new baby is soon followed by a difficult race against time: before the baby reaches six months, the mother is expected to return to work, often leaving behind a child who still depends entirely on her breast milk.
This painful reality raises a simple but important question: “how can Ghana expect mothers to exclusively breastfeed for six months when maternity leave is only three months?”
Exclusive breastfeeding is the practice of giving a baby only breast milk for the first six months of life without any additional food, water, formula or other liquids. The only exemptions are medicines, vitamins and oral rehydration solutions.
Through breastfeeding, children receive the required nutrients, antibodies and hydration needed for their optimal growth and development.
Renowned institutions such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) strongly recommend exclusive breastfeeding from birth for the first six months, after which nutritionally adequate complementary foods should be introduced into the baby’s diet.
Strict adherence to exclusive breastfeeding helps protect infants from infections such as diarrhoea, pneumonia and ear infections, while also lowering the risk of malnutrition and gastrointestinal problems.
Aside from being cost-effective and environmentally friendly, breast milk is naturally safe, clean and ready to feed, making it particularly important in areas where access to safe water and proper sanitation remains a challenge.
Mothers also benefit greatly from breastfeeding. While helping them to lose weight reasonably after childbirth, breastfeeding lowers their risk of breast and ovarian cancers, Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Exclusive breastfeeding also strengthens the bond between mother and child and supports the mother’s emotional well-being.
It can also help delay the return of fertility, providing natural spacing between pregnancies.
Yet, despite these life-saving benefits, only about half of infants in Ghana are exclusively breastfed during this crucial period. This should concern us as a nation.
One of the major challenges is the unfriendly environment and inadequate facilities, particularly at formal workplaces, which limit the ability of mothers to continue exclusive breastfeeding after returning from maternity leave.
For many mothers, the three-month maternity leave ends when their babies are only three months old.
At that point, the child still has another three months to go before completing the recommended period of exclusive breastfeeding.
The mother is then faced with the difficult choice of returning to work while trying to maintain a feeding routine that the workplace may not be designed to support.
In many workplaces, mothers are not allowed to go to work with their babies.
Even where arrangements are made for mothers to have access to their children, there may be no privacy or suitable facilities for breastfeeding.
This does not only affect breastfeeding but can also interfere with the proper bonding between mother and child during the formative stages of the child’s life.
As a nation, it is time for us to take a cursory look at the statistics and employ strategies that will help change this narrative.
We should encourage organisations, particularly formal workplaces, to provide supportive working environments for breastfeeding mothers and, where practicable, make provisions for mothers to have their children close to them.
More importantly, Ghanaians across the board should add their voices to the call on government to review upwards the number of months given to mothers as maternity leave.
The issue should not be seen simply as a demand by working women for more time away from work.
It is about creating the right conditions for mothers to give their children the best possible start in life.
If health experts recommend six months of exclusive breastfeeding, then our maternity policies should also be examined to determine whether they adequately support that recommendation.
We therefore call on the various women’s advocacy groups, particularly the Women’s Caucus in Parliament, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, and other non-governmental organisations to keep pushing this agenda until government and policymakers see the need to review the current three-month maternity leave period to six months.
The first six months of a child’s life should not become a battle between a mother’s responsibility to her child and her responsibility to her job. Ghana must create a system in which a mother does not have to choose between the two.
The time has come to give Ghanaian mothers the support they need to give their children the healthy beginning they deserve.
By Macclen Nortey, C.E.O., Hands of Gold Foundation
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