|
BACK
TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
BABIES AND MATERNITY LEAVE
A specialist in neonatology at the University of British
Columbia, Dr. Rebecca Cook, mother of two small children,
took only three months maternity leave for her first child
and two months leave with her second child. This short period
of time off was due to the fact she was undertaking extensive
training in her specialty at the time of her children’s
births.
Dr. Cook subsequently carried out a research project, spearheaded
by B.C. Children’s and Women’s Health Centre,
to determine the effect on a baby of the mother’s early
return to work after giving birth. Dr. Cook admits that she
fully expected the research to confirm that the length of
maternity leave had no bearing on childhood development. To
her shock, her research disclosed quite the opposite. That
is, she was totally wrong in her assumption that a mother’s
early return to work would not affect her baby. Instead, her
study, published in the September 2007 issue of the journal
Early Human Development, reveals
that women who rush back to work after giving birth place
their babies at risk. She found that the less time a new mother
stays off the job, the more likely it will be that her child’s
motor and social development will be impaired. The chance
of impairment dropped by three percent with each extra month
taken off by mothers after birth. If a mother took a full
24 months off work after birth, there was no link established
to the child’s social and motor impairment.
Further, in July 2007, Tom Schuller, Director of the Branch
of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) called the Center for Education Research
and Innovation, which just published a book, “Understanding
the Brain”, a summary of current knowledge about brain
science, stated that there is no scientific support for institutional
child care.
This all discredits the statements made by representatives
of the child care lobby group, the Child Care Advocacy Association
of Canada (CCAC), when it testified before the Senate Social
Affairs Committee on April 20, 2007 (See REALity September/October
2007, page 9, “The Child Care Issue Still Haunts Us”.)
In the CCAC’s testimony, they stated, at page 20-4-2007,
20:13, as follows:
Unless you are trained in the understanding of the development
of young children and the benchmarks of their growth, you
can be caring but you cannot be necessarily knowledgeable
in those pieces. We see that in day-to-day work with children.
Grandmas, aunties and informal neighbours, are wonderful
and nice to children, but they do not have those important
skills. It is important to look at a trained work force.
What nonsense! As if a mere two year early child care development
course could possibly match the intense bond and love and
one-on-one care provided by a loving, concerned parent or
relative in a child’s life.
If only all mothers could stay home with their child for two
years after birth! Like most things in life, however, this
is not so simple. Many new mothers must return to work for
financial reasons, to secure their careers, or because of
various reasons they do not choose to be a stay-at-home mum.
As well, the financial costs of a two-year paid maternity
leave would be onerous, not so much for the government, but
for small businesses which would find such a long leave extremely
difficult to manage.
The Need for Parental Care
One way to assist parents in providing parental care for
their children in their early years is for the government
to lessen the tax pressure on families with young children.
In this regard, it is especially important that the government
implement a policy of income splitting for families, (See
article on Income
Splitting) Such a measure will not be the answer
for all Canadian families, but it certainly will make a massive
difference for many families, which will then have more financial
flexibility to allow one parent to remain at home during the
early years, if they so choose. It will also make a great
difference to new babies whose best interests will be served
by having a parent at home. These babies are our future: their
well-being is ours.
BACK
TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
|
