Employers who cover health care for workers’ families have lower costs for doctor visits,
hospitalization, and medications when babies are optimally breastfed.
• When children are healthier, productivity goes up because parents miss fewer work days, worry less and concentrate more on their work.
• If a woman knows her employer supports breastfeeding, she may come back sooner after maternity leave, thus reducing the employer’s retraining and replacement costs.
• Workplace support for a woman’s “mother-work” gives her a compelling reason for loyalty to her employer.
Benefit of breastfeeding to society as a whole
• Human milk is a unique natural resource for building brain power as well as health. The only way to obtain it is through breastfeeding.
• If a community does not give women the support they need in order to breastfeed, this valuable resource can be lost.
• On top of the obvious costs to the health care system due to associated illness, society pays hidden costs of environmental degradation and the loss of learning potential in children. Breastfeeding is a key component of child-care.
• Each generation of breastfed children lays the foundation for a future generation of healthy and productive workers
• Breastfeeding provides a healthy, viable, non-polluting, non-resource intensive, sustainable and natural source of nutrition and sustenance.
Source: Ministry of Health Kenya
Link: https://www.health.go.ke/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/GUIDELINES-FOR-WORKPLACE-SUPPORT-FOR-WOMEN-SOFTY-COPY-SAMPLE-converted.pdf
