Exclusive breastfeeding for six months is inconvenient and unrealistic for working mothers. Some may agree and others may not. As such this will be a debated topic in the coming days as the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, the country’s premier public health institution, observes Breastfeeding Week 2017 which commenced on Sunday September 17 with a health walk and will conclude with a social gathering on Saturday September 23.
But breastfeeding a baby exclusively for six months will continue to be a debatable topic even after the week of observance. This is in light of the fact that mothers are granted three months maternity leave after which they are obligated to leave their babies behind and return to work. However health officials have long advised that six months exclusive breastfeeding is crucial but yet policymakers have been slightly in putting measures in place to realise this.
According to Minister within the Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Karen Cummings a great deal of measures will have to be out in place before mothers can benefit from six months maternity leave. She has said publicly, “Even though we have the go-ahead from some stakeholders and sectors, the current three months leave is in adherence with the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) Act, and we will have to re-adjust that before any change can take place.”
“So we will have to keep working with that before we can extend three months to six months…it is not easy, but it is on the drawing board,” she noted.