My milk wouldn't come: A mother's breastfeeding nightmare
Breast milk is a natural source of nutrition and sustenance as it helps strengthen brain power and build up a child’s immune system.
What you need to know:
- In Parliament, nominated member Sabina Chege has sponsored the Breastfeeding Mothers Bill (2024). The public has since presented their views.
- The bill mandates employers to provide a lactation place for its working mothers to breastfeed or express breast milk.
Dorothy* had a bittersweet breastfeeding experience. She had her baby in 2015 while working as a procurement assistant at a university in Nyeri County.
For three days, she produced zero milk and suffered from unbearable nipple pain due to her baby’s dry breastfeeding.
At the time, Dorothy was helpless and clueless about breastfeeding, being a first-time mother. It, however, never crossed her mind to search online for possible solutions.
“I was struggling with post-delivery pain. How could I even think about a Google search about breastfeeding? The baby survived on infant formula,” Dorothy says.
Her mother advised her to consume huge amounts of wheat products, including whole wheat bread, black beans, oxtail soup, Milo drink, and millet porridge, and drink a lot of water.
Suddenly, the breast milk was overflowing but the breasts and nipples hurt so much, the pain she had to endure to breastfeed her child.
Two weeks later, the pain subsided and finally went away. She expressed enough milk for the baby. Additionally, she had the advantage of a flexible working arrangement with her employer.
“By noon and 4pm, I was home to breastfeed the baby. I only suffered in the early days of delivery. Thereafter, everything was smooth. I had enough milk. I never struggled,” she shares.
But for Ava*, another working mother, it was a stressful period. She struggled to keep up with breastfeeding her four-month-old baby when she resumed work in 2022.
As an editor in a newsroom, her work involves long hours of working, yet her production of breast milk was so little to express and save for the child.
“Nothing stresses me like breastfeeding. Neither morning sickness, pregnancy fatigue nor labour,” says Ava in Nairobi.
“Breastfeeding is my worst [period of motherhood],” she stresses.
She vainly strained every nerve to increase her milk production. This forced her to stop breastfeeding her child a month after going back to work.
She had tried many remedies, some of which were suggestions she gathered from online search and advice from older mothers in the village.
“I tried many things like lactation cookies and protein powder, avoided tea and drank chocolate, but they all didn’t work. It was just too stressful. I gave up.”
Perhaps a mobile application created by a similarly stressed breastfeeding mother would have soothed the hassles of Dorothy and Ava.
Nyonyesha (Breastfeeding) App available on Google Play Store provides breastfeeding, maternal and child health information alongside updates on standardised health messages from reputable health institutions, including health ministries and the World Health Organisation.
“Through Nyonyesha App, a mother can set her breastfeeding and pumping schedules and the App can send them reminders,” says the application’s founder Janet Otieno.
She is a journalist who struggled with getting reliable breastfeeding information soon as she returned to work upon expiry of her maternity leave in 2015. She says she developed the mobile application to smoothen the breastfeeding mothers’ experience. It was launched in November 2020.
“The app can be downloaded anywhere in the world and so far 500 women have downloaded it,” she says.
Financial constraints have restrained her marketing strategy, and presently, she pegs on word of mouth and referrals. “It is expensive to develop the app and cover the annual costs of continuous upgrading. I use my own resources to cover all the expenses.”
In Parliament, nominated member Sabina Chege has sponsored the Breastfeeding Mothers Bill (2024). The public has since presented their views.
Their views would inform the report of the Departmental Committee on Social Protection to the House on the acceptance or dismissal of the bill.
The bill mandates employers to provide a lactation place for its working mothers to breastfeed or express breast milk. Failure to do so, they would be penalised at least Sh1 million, or a year in jail, or both.
It also gives employed mothers the power to apply for a flexible work arrangement to breastfeed or express milk.
*Mothers’ names have been changed to protect their identities and privacy.
