A nurse at Indra Ceramic shows a young mother how to store breast milk in a hygienic container.

Three times each workday 28-year-old mother of one and ceramic-factory employee Pailin Pengtun dashes to a nursing station for 20 minutes before emerging with a bottle of precious white liquid.

It has been five months since Pailin returned to work after a three-month maternity leave. Now she is doing what many working mothers wish they could do for their infants - take a "breast milk break" at work.

In spite of being parted from her child each day, Pailin can now make sure she feeds her with her own breast milk. This is thanks to employer Indra Ceramic.

"Realising how important breast milk is to children, and knowing how hard it is for working mothers to breastfeed, I could not sit by and do nothing," recalls Indra production director Anurak Napawan.

A couple of years ago Anurak turned a corner of the factory's first-aid clinic into a room where mothers could express their milk. Working mothers simply pop in and draw breast milk, store it in a refrigerator and then take it home after work.

"It's depressing enough to learn some mothers are forced to use workplace toilets to draw breast milk and kept it for feeding later," he says.

In addition to pre- and post-natal breastfeeding training arranged by Indra, the company employs a nurse to help and instruct mothers on hygienic storage of milk and its proper re-heating for babies at home.

"Breast milk is the best source of nourishment for infants. All mothers can breastfeed, regardless of economic status," says Anurak, a father of three.

"My child is very healthy. Doctors tell me his strong immune system is a result of his being breastfed," says Inthira Ounkaew, another breastfeeding mother at Indra. She has been feeding her boy this way for two years.

According to the American Academy of Paediatrics, there are health, nutritional, immunological, psychological, social, economic and environmental advantages to breastfeeding.

International studies show breast-fed children are at reduced risk of sudden infant death syndrome and other diseases - from allergies to obesity.

Breastfeeding benefits the mother too. Studies show breastfeeding mothers are at lower risk of many diseases, including breast and ovarian cancer.

Over the past few years the Public Health Ministry has been promoting breastfeeding for infants until they reach at least six months. It encourages mothers to continue until infants are two.

The ministry found breastfeeding rates dwindled over the past years due to lifestyle changes and an increasing number of working mothers.

However, the big problem is at sweatshops, where breastfeeding by poorly educated and low-income mothers is not supported.

Indra is one example of voluntary workplace support for young mothers encouraged by the ministry, explains paediatrician Kannika Bangsainoi.

Indra is one of the best-known Lampang-based manufacturers and exporters of ceramic products. It employs about 650 people - mostly women of childbearing age. Each year about 30 employees take maternity leave.

The programme had its teething problems. Mothers often started feeding children with infant formula while in hospital or at home after persuasive marketing tactics by powdered-milk companies.

Then, Anurak says the company began to send personnel officers to visit mothers at hospitals and nurses to their homes. This was successful in convincing mothers to breastfeed children.

Today 16 per cent of young mothers working at Indra breastfeed - a rate twice the national average for infants aged up to six months.

This year the company is aiming for 25 per cent.

It costs little to provide a breastfeeding corner, educate mothers of the benefits of breastfeeding and allow women the extra time off to express milk, Anurak says.

"Trust me, what we get in return is much more.

"Considerably fewer mothers take leave to look after sick kids, morale at work is better as is performance and employee loyalty," he says.

"If you believe breastfeeding is important, you will find a way to make it happen," he adds.

Arthit Khwankhom

The Nation

LAMPANG