MUNDE: The 'fifth trimester': How to cope with returning to work after maternity leave

The sad reality for many women in the workplace is that they earn between 70 and 80 cents for every shilling men earn. And as if this is not unfair enough, women have to fight for their rights even harder when they get pregnant and give birth.

Many women have been forced out of the workplace involuntarily because of unfavourable and toxic environments they are subjected to during pregnancy and when they return from their maternity leave.

The irony is that no one would be here had a woman not given birth to them.

Pregnancy is supposed to be one of the happiest times of a woman’s life, but for some, they feel the pressure to prove their work ethic and skills more than ever before, lest they are struck off the payroll.

Since firing a pregnant woman is discrimination and should she sue her employer, she is likely to win, there are rogue companies which find other ways to frustrate expectant mums in the hope they will become so unhappy that they quit by themselves.

There are firms which see a woman of ‘child-bearing age’ (which according to the Ministry of Health is until 49 years) as a liability because they are likely to get pregnant and ‘cost’ the company money when they are away for three months of maternity leave (which is not even enough to go back to work but is something, considering advanced countries like the US don’t have paid maternity leave).

When women return from maternity leave, some feel the pressure to prove they are committed to their work and some abandon the all important activity of expressing breast milk because of fear that their employers will use it as grounds to say they are taking up company time and use it against them to bypass them during promotions or add them on to a redundancy list if the company undergoes restructuring.

First, it’s important that women know that employers are not doing them a favour by letting them have time to go and express milk. According to Kenya’s Guidelines for Securing a Breastfeeding Friendly Environment at the Work place, 2018, a woman with a baby under the age of two years is entitled to a minimum of 60 minutes in addition to the regular breaks for every eight working hours to express.

The guidelines also show that a woman who knows her employer supports her breastfeeding could save costs of retraining and replacement because she is more likely to return to work sooner after maternity leave. Studies have also shown that babies who are exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life have less incidences of falling sick (which means less hospital visits, which a mum needs to take time off work to attend to) and this makes good business sense in the wider scheme of things. A woman with a healthy baby is also less stressed, which enables her to be more productive at work.

A friend of mine – Elsie - experienced discrimination at the hands of a rogue employer.

Her pregnancy did not show until the eighth month and when it did, the sad thing is that she tried her best to hide it by wearing baggy clothes because she knew her employer was not supportive. The pregnancy journey is supposed to be joyful, with the chance to update your wardrobe and flaunt your belly and glow, but here she was, trying to hide it.

When her belly could no longer be hidden and her supervisors noticed she was pregnant, one of her managers – a man – called her aside and said something to the effect, “You’ve decided to join the bandwagon? Mtoto anakuja lini (when are you due)?”

Elsie dismissed the comment and didn’t say when she was due, however, two days later, the human resource manager – a woman - called her aside and patronizingly said, “I have just noticed you’re carrying a bundle of joy. You haven’t come to my office to tell me which hospital you’ll be delivering in so we can inform the insurer in good time.”

The HR manager had been sent by Elsie’s manager to sniff out information.

The Employment Act only requires a woman to give at least one week’s notice of her intention to proceed on maternity leave. It is good practice to give a longer notice, but in the case of Elsie, she had good reason to prolong the notice as much as possible.

The HR manager went ahead to tell Elsie that she was thinking about moving her to another department which had “lighter duties” because she “cared” so much about her and didn’t want her doing the “stressful” work she was doing.

The department the HR manager was proposing she be moved to was effectively a demotion. Because the method used to try and demote her was so sneaky, Elsie was caught flat footed and initially agreed to it, until she consulted her lawyer friend who told her that what was happening was effectively discrimination.

The company had wanted to move her to another department before she proceeded on maternity leave because the Employment Act states that a woman is entitled to return to the work she had immediately before proceeding on leave and nothing lower, so they knew it would be hard to demote her once she returned to work.

The company had even gone so far as to recruit for her position and only changed the title of the job being hired for.

Elsie had thought of quitting, but on advice of her lawyer friend, she went back to the HR manager and said she was not willing to move to the other department because it was totally out of line with the skills she had and was hired for.

Although Elsie stayed on at the company until she proceeded on maternity leave, her stay there became a nightmare.

She decided not to return to the company after the end of her maternity leave after being offered a better job in another company.

The sad reality is that some women opt to quit their jobs (and do not have an alternative job to go to) because of discrimination on grounds of their pregnancy.

For those who return to their workplaces, many have to contend with logistics of expressing milk because many companies still do not have proper lactation rooms, even though it is a requirement. Some mums have to pump breast milk in the toilet if they do not have a car. Storing the milk is also a challenge as some companies do not have fridges.

Worse still, as they contend with pumping logistics, many mums have to make use of their lunch hour to pump milk because they are afraid of demanding (or unaware of) their right to an hour to express milk.

This post is a challenge to employers to support mothers in the workplace because without them, no one would be here. It also just makes good business sense.

As always, to mums juggling raising their babies and working, keep doing the Johnnie Walker – keep walking.