In ob­ser­vance of World Breast­feed­ing Week which ran from Au­gust 1 to 7, The in­for­ma­tive Breast­feed­ing Ser­vice of T&T (TIBS), through its Moth­er-Friend­ly Work­place Ini­tia­tive, ho­n­oured the Cen­tral Bank of T&T for what the NGO de­scribes as an ex­cel­lent job done by the bank in re­gard to its ma­ter­nal fa­cil­i­ty es­tab­lished in 2008. The award was ac­cept­ed by se­nior man­ag­er–hu­man re­sources and cor­po­rate man­age­ment, Nicole Crooks. On Au­gust 8, at the fa­cil­i­ty lo­cat­ed on the third floor, TIBS med­ical ad­vis­er Dr David Bratt com­mend­ed the bank for its ef­fort in en­sur­ing work­ing moth­ers can still breast­feed or store breast milk for their ba­bies while on the job. He said the bank is pi­o­neer­ing in that as­pect. Dr Bratt said he hoped to see more or­gan­i­sa­tions adopt the same mod­el, as hav­ing such fa­cil­i­ties have in­creased pro­duc­tiv­i­ty for com­pa­nies and im­prove the men­tal and emo­tion­al well-be­ing of em­ploy­ees. Dr Bratt said or­gan­i­sa­tions in T&T were re­cent­ly giv­en ex­treme­ly low rat­ings in a Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) re­port on cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. He said not enough is be­ing done by lo­cal com­pa­nies to en­sure their em­ploy­ees re­main emo­tion­al­ly and men­tal­ly fit. He said a cor­po­rate lac­ta­tion pro­gramme can pro­vide ben­e­fits both to em­ploy­ees and the com­pa­ny. "It is recog­nised in­ter­na­tion­al­ly that com­pa­nies with lac­ta­tion pro­grammess in place re­port few­er oc­ca­sions of ab­sence from work by em­ploy­ees due to their chil­dren's ill­ness. Moth­ers and fa­thers have greater peace of mind and, there­fore, there is greater pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and im­proved work sat­is­fac­tion," said Dr Bratt.

His views were sup­port­ed by TIBS di­rec­tor and sec­re­tary, Jacque­line Gib­bon, who said ma­ter­nal fa­cil­i­ties and child­care fa­cil­i­ties at work­places must be­come com­pul­so­ry. She said new moth­ers face many chal­lenges, and one of the hard­est de­ci­sions to make is arrange­ments for child­care and con­tin­u­ing to breast­feed on re­turn­ing to work af­ter ma­ter­ni­ty leave. "Lack of time and pri­vate space to ex­press and store her breast milk, lack of sup­port from em­ploy­ers, to­geth­er with the is­sue of who will care for her in­fant dur­ing her ab­sence, are huge con­cerns that moth­ers strug­gle with when ma­ter­ni­ty leave is over. These con­cerns may re­sult in lack of con­cen­tra­tion on the job," ex­plained Gib­bon. She said a lac­ta­tion pro­gramme is an es­sen­tial com­po­nent for fam­i­lies striv­ing to pro­vide op­ti­mal health and nu­tri­tion out­comes for their chil­dren. "Women feel more com­pa­ny loy­al­ty lead­ing to bet­ter re­ten­tion of em­ploy­ees. It al­so in­di­cates that the com­pa­ny is com­mit­ted to the health and well-be­ing of its em­ploy­ees and their fam­i­lies and links with a com­mit­ment to cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty," said Gib­bon.

All hands on deck

TIBS re­ceives a sub­ven­tion from the Gov­ern­ment but says it is not enough to sup­port the roles and func­tions of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Gib­bon said while she thanks the Gov­ern­ment for stand­ing with the NGO, the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors need to get in­volved. Over the years the NGO?has strug­gled to get peo­ple in­volved in ob­serv­ing World Breast­feed­ing Week and the im­por­tance of it. De­scrib­ing T&T as "stand­off­ish" in ad­dress­ing this is­sue, she said this year the or­gan­i­sa­tion has de­cid­ed to fo­cus more on the sis­ter isle. "They are so much more re­cep­tive to the whole idea and they seem to be more aware of the need for cor­po­rate lac­ta­tion pro­grammes," said Gib­bons. She said for the pub­lic to pay clos­er and more at­ten­tion to the im­por­tance of breast­feed­ing, there will be need for "all hands on deck." Gib­bon and Bratt are hop­ing moth­ers, es­pe­cial­ly young moth­ers who un­der­stand the im­por­tance and ben­e­fits of breast­feed­ing, will com­man­deer pri­vate and pub­lic en­gage­ment on this dis­course. TIBS host­ed a breast­feed­ing walk-a-thon on Au­gust 4 in Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go and had a strong pres­ence at the Au­gust 12 Min­istry of Health Na­tion­al Well­ness Day. • For more in­for­ma­tion on TIBS, vis­it the of­fice at 8 Rust Street St Clair, Port-of-Spain, or call 628-8234.