DUTY CALLS
A working
mother’s hardest goodbye
Maternity leave ends while a mother is
still healing and the baby needs her
In Summary
• Three months with a newborn not enough, say mums. Medics, WHO
recommend six
• Employers fear
extra liability if leave is extended and warn it could cost women jobs
Mothers experience
a lot of physical, emotional and psychological changes after childbirth,
explains nurse Jolly Mukangu. https://bit.ly/2PpixJF
As the clock counts down to the day she must return to work, a new
mother in Ngong is anxious about the looming separation from her baby girl.
Valentine Bosibori* (not her real name) looks at the chubby-faced,
silky-haired infant, eyes agape and soft lips suckling.
“I feel unprepared to leave her,” the mother of four says. “She still
seems so delicate.”
Mothers in Kenya are entitled to three months of maternity leave, while
fathers get two weeks of paternity leave. Employers are obliged to pay their
salaries in full during this absence.
Bosibori has exhausted her break, but her mind, body and spirit are not
ready for a return to her civil service job in Embakasi.
Her baby has also not yet adapted to bottle feeding. She needs more time
to train her.
So Bosibori has taken her annual leave to get an extra month home.
She feels privileged compared to women who return to work even a week
after giving birth due to financial hardship. Many women in small businesses
don’t get any maternity leave and if they do, it’s mostly unpaid.
Bosibori’s days home are dwindling, however. She is preparing herself
and her baby for their eventual separation.
“I am literally forcing myself to detach from the baby so she can learn
to stay that way until I'm back from work and get used to the caregiver.”
As she contends with the impending delegation of responsibility,
Bosibori is worried about the rising cases of child abuse by house helps.
“I have to go to work hoping and praying she can love, care and look
after my children with true concern.”
Most house helps are not trained in childcare. They get hired through
word-of-mouth recommendations and include dropouts and single mums from
informal settlements.
Some helps are
efficient, but many give their employers grief. If not fired for misconduct or
incompetence, they may abscond duty, leading to a cycle of recruitment.
Hush, baby! I’ll be
back
Image: OZONE
FAMILY FIRST
Janet Chao*, a second-time mother, delivered both her girls through
Caesarean section. The first surgery was due to an emergency. The second one
suited Chao as a petite woman.
Her new baby is now eight months old and came several years after the
first one. She was born after Chao quit her NGO job and moved from Mombasa to
live with her partner in Nairobi.
Three months after delivering the second-born, Chao could move around,
go shopping and do some personal errands, but she was “not back to factory
settings” yet. “Maybe with normal delivery, but with a CS, far from it,” she
says.
Chao is glad she left her job when she moved to Nairobi. “I don’t know
how it would have been if I had transferred then after three months, I’m going
back to work,” she says, dreading the traffic in the city. “In the morning, you
leave home at 5.30am. When you come back, it’s 9pm.”
Lack of sleep due to the baby’s cries at night, the painstaking search
for a reliable house help and the stress of expressing milk for the baby before
leaving for work or at work because her breasts are too full, would all
compound the situation.
“Then you tell me to go scrambling with people to get on a matatu on the
way to work at that point? I would not have been able. My belly hurt when the
baby would kick, what about getting hit when I’m boarding a matatu?”
Moreover, Chao is
averse to leaving her house help with a three-month-old baby. “You only see the
baby at night and over the weekend? Eish! No. I’m happy taking care of her
myself. Whatever milestones she’s achieving, I can see them. I know what she
likes and doesn’t like, I know her health, her diet and everything.”
Three months is usually very short. It sounds long, but it’s very short
when you are in that situation
Nurse Jolly Mukangu
BODILY CHANGES
Reproductive Health Services programmes manager Jolly Mukangu looks at
the motherhood journey both as a professional and as a mother.
“Three months is usually very short,” says the Nairobi-based nurse. “It
sounds long, but it is very short when you are in that situation.”
Mukangu says mothers experience a lot of physical, emotional and
psychological changes after childbirth.
Delivery itself takes a toll. Whether one has a C-section or normal
vaginal birth, three months is not enough time to heal, she says.
Hormonal changes lead to mood swings. Some mothers suffer postpartum
depression. They wallow in sadness and may become suicidal or want to kill the
baby.
Cracked nipples is
another common problem. Mukangu blames it on improper positioning of the baby
during breastfeeding. It makes suckling painful and requires a medical ointment
to cure.
There is more to breastfeeding than
placing a nipple in a baby's mouth
When Professor Grace Irimu recently told a group of women that they
needed to teach mothers how to breastfeed, they dismissed her saying that there
was nothing about breastfeeding that women did not already know.
The Star / ROSE GATHIGAH / Apr 20, 2015
The three-month leave is also supposed to cater for nursing the baby. At
the end of it, the baby is still really small and mothers are reluctant to
leave it with a house help.
“You don’t know if they are going to give the baby the right formula, if
they will use the right equipment or clean it nicely.” Babies who don’t
normally get sick start having problems with digestion, she says.
Longer maternity leave would help solve these problems. “Six months is
best,” Mukangu says, echoing what the World Health Organisation recommends.
This is enough time for the mother to fully recover. With exclusive
breastfeeding, the baby will also have toughened up at that age.
“Even if the house
girl or caregiver gives them something which is not recommended, they can
handle it because they have enough immunity.”
FKE executive
director Jacqueline Mugo addresses the press at Waajiri House, Nairobi, on July
29, 2020
Image: WILFRED NYANGARESI
Employers have never opposed prolonged maternity leave. Their concern is
how the prolonged leave is to be funded
EMPLOYER CONCERNS
Jacqueline Mugo, executive director of the Federation of Kenya Employers,
says employers need to be furnished with evidence-based data on the inadequacy
of the prevailing maternity leave.
Three months is the minimum required by the International Labour
Organisation. Mugo says lengthening it could lead to bias against women in
hiring.
Sectors dominated by women would suffer. She cites export-processing
zones, where women make up 95 per cent of the workforce in garment processing.
“Replacing some talents while a substantial number of women are on
maternity leave compromises production and quality.”
Similar concerns were raised in 2017, when then Buuri MP Boniface Gatobu
tried unsuccessfully to increase maternity leave to six months for better
mother and child health.
These reservations, however, do not amount to a rejection of the idea.
“Employers have never opposed prolonged maternity leave. Their concern is how
the prolonged leave is to be funded,” Mugo says.
Until 2007, Kenya used to provide for two months of maternity leave and
no paternity leave. This was increased to three months for mothers, while
fathers were given two weeks.
While social partners were reviewing the Employment Act at the time,
there was an understanding that the government, through the National Social
Security Fund, would fund the third month of maternity leave, while the
employer paid for two months.
The government is yet to honour its end of the bargain, however, leaving
employers to shoulder the burden. The maternity and paternity leaves raised the
cost of doing business by 15 per cent.
Mugo says a further extension should not be billed on employers. “The
government should take responsibility by introducing a fund to take care of the
extra maternity leave above the current three months.”
Meanwhile, she
calls for breastfeeding rooms in workplaces, flexible working hours after
maternity leave and non-discrimination against female employees proceeding on
maternity leave.
Kenyan mothers have
half the maternity leave recommended by WHO, but how do they compare with other
countries? https://bit.ly/2PpixJF
DAYCARE BOOM
Working mothers got an unexpected reprieve last year when the Covid-19
pandemic led to a work-from-home trend. However, most companies have since
recalled their staff to the office.
Daycare centres have proliferated to bridge the gap in childcare. They
charge between Sh300 and Sh1,000 a day on average. In
comparison, most house helps are paid Sh6,000 a month on average, less than
half the minimum wage of Sh13,000.
While house helps only babysit infants and toddlers, daycares offer
age-appropriate child development courses.
“We focus on building the foundation before they start schooling,” says
Peter Muraya, managing director of Victoria Kids Care in Garden Estate, Thome.
In operation since 2014, it is listed by AfroMum among 10 ideal daycares in Nairobi.
Its colourful classes and playground have a capacity of 100. Children
learn how to behave and communicate, giving them an edge over babies who stay
at home.
“My girl is doing so well, with great improvements in language,
socialisation and confidence,” writes Mama Daphine in a testimonial on their website.
The teachers are trained in first aid, and the daycare is close to three
hospitals in case of a medical emergency.
Mothers get daily reports on their children’s feeding and activities
through an app. Security is also assured, Muraya says.
“Many mothers have trust issues with house helps: ‘Is my child well
taken care of? What happens when I’m at work?’ We have CCTVs, so we give them
peace of mind that their child is safe.”
