The rights of childhoods and those who care for them are a public issue. Breastfeeding is not a luxury or a private choice: it is a vital practice that must be sustained throughout society.
This could be another note about the World Breastfeeding Week, but from Grow – Gender and Work We want it to be a trigger, an invitation to think critically, to question and transform. Because human milk is not just food, it is a link and it is a right that allows survival in the first months of life. Now that right cannot be exercised alone. That’s why we ask ourselves: Why does it cost us so much to assume that breastfeeding is a collective responsibility and not an individual burden? Giving the tit should not be a path of sacrifice or an act of heroicity, but a responsibility of the entire community. And companies also participate in this broader commitment.
Ensuring the right to breastfeed in decent conditions in the work world is not only a health or individual well -being measure, but A key policy to ensure gender equality if it is intended to build inclusive and respectful organizations of human rights. Making breastfeeding in labor contexts requires more than will: it requires adequate infrastructure, policies, compromised leaderships and a deep transformation into organizational culture.
The data is overwhelming and worrying. In Argentina, The return to work is the main reason why breastfeeding is interrupted: It is done by 28% of pregnant people, and in the case of those who work in dependency relationship, that figure amounts to almost 40% (UNICEF, 2024). Most of the women who work away from home fail to sustain exclusive breastfeeding when they return. This is not an individual failure, it is the consequence of a social organization of unbalanced care where families and in this case those who breastfeed, absorb most of the charge of care.
The problem is structural. In 2022 a report from the then National Directorate of Economy, Equality and Gender entitled The cost of taking care confirmed that women with children face a clear economic penalty: they earn 33.7% less per hour than men with children, work on average 15 hours less than them and face higher levels of informality, unemployment and precariousness. The presence of children in the home directly impacts their job trajectories and their income. This phenomenon is known worldwide “Penalty of motherhood” And it is not exclusive to the reality of working women in Argentina, but according to global data, our country is one of the most hostile for women who are mothers and work. Breastfeeding, in that sense, becomes a turning point, who hold it do so with enormous personal effort and many times at the expense of their physical, mental or professional career.
The first step is to report responsibly. The way we talk about breastfeeding matters, because language not only reflects realities, it also molds them. Therefore, it is important to expand the idea of breastfeeding beyond the traditional mother-child model, to include all possible experiences in which this essential food circulates as an act of care: from those who breastfeed directly to those who feed with human milk in other family or community ties.
At the same time, we must critically review the generalized use of the term “maternal milk”, when what exists are pharmacological formulas designed as supplement or substitute in specific situations. While its scientific development has been key to saving lives, their mass promotion and Its use as a replacement without medical indication weakens the recognition of breastfeeding as a vital right and practice. Faced with this, the first unavoidable step is to implement information campaigns, with reliable and accessible data, who accompany those who breastfeed and prepare their environment – family, community and work – to sustain breastfeeding as what it is: a collective responsibility.
From Grow – Gender and Work we accompany organizations that seek to transform into more equitable, inclusive and diverse spaces. We are dedicated to promoting change processes so that they can assume an active and conscious role in the task of caring for our childhoods while also taking care of those who breastfeed. Because we know, from our own experience and for the voice of so many workers, who does not reach with a single measure, however intentionally. Having a breastfeeding friend space is important, but if it is not accompanied by an integral look and a battery of complementary policies, it loses effectiveness.
You need much more: Awareness campaigns for equipment, egalitarian licenses, flexible schedules, access to extraction kits, human milk banks, reliable information and constant accompaniment. It is not only about infrastructure, but about transforming work culture so that no one has to choose between producing milk and fulfilling their work, nor feeling that their uncomfortable right or that must pay as if nothing had changed. To make this possible, a present state is also key, that regulates, promotes and accompanies these transformations with clear and sustained policies.
We insist: The rights of childhoods and those who care for them are a public issue. Just as it would be inadmissible for a workplace to have no bathrooms, we should be equally inadmissible that does not have adequate conditions to exercise the right to breastfeed. Breastfeeding is not a luxury or a private choice: it is a vital practice that must be sustained throughout society.
Magister Lawyer in Human Rights, Diagnostic Area and Implementation of Grow-Gender and Work
Source: Ambito
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