I refer to the report ‘Help working women if you want to help birth rate’ (March 19). According to Anna Borg, director of the Labour Studies Centre of the University of Malta, the “pressures women have when they have children need to be better addressed if Malta’s birth rate is to improve”.
Quoting the European Union statistics office, she said that while fertility rates in Malta had been going down for a number of years, it was worrying that efforts to increase births were not yielding results. To address this issue, she said, “the government had to introduce more measures that encouraged women to have children while also making it easier for them to join the work force”.
When helping women to help raise the birth rate the authorities should take great care that help, perhaps through more social, financial and fiscal incentives, is not given only to increase thebirth rate for political, demographic, social security and gender equality purposes. Women are not babies machines or prime movers of more economic growth.
In the whole process of moving from working at home to working anywhere else there is also the possibility, even probability, that women who plan to have children, or realise that they are going to have children, will pass through periods of stress which will surely affect negatively their health and the overall health of their unborn children, especially if subtly lured, pushed or pressured to do so.
Psychologists and nutritionists who work with childless couples who want to have children of their own will surely attest to this possibility.
Today it is generally known through womb ecology studies that human health is to a great extent shaped during the primal period which includes the pre-natal phase - fetal life.
Many studies have been compiled detecting correlations between states of health in adulthood, adolescence or childhood and situations when the mother was pregnant. There is also an accumulation of data suggesting that the way we are born has long-term consequences, particularly in the fields of sociability, aggressiveness and the capacity to love.
In June 2009, during the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition at Imperial College London, visitors could see how pregnant women’s stress levels could affect the heart rate of their unborn baby and find out why pregnant women should reduce their anxiety.
Studies have detected correlations between states of health in adulthood, adolescence or childhood and situations when the mother was pregnant
The researchers behind the exhibit had hoped that it would raise families’ awareness of the importance of reducing levels of stress and anxiety in expectant mothers. They had contended that reducing stress during pregnancy could help prevent thousands of children from developing emotional and behavioural problems later on in life.
The Imperial College researchers’ work had shown that maternal stress and anxiety can alter the development of the baby’s brain. This in turn can result in a greater risk of emotional problems such as anxiety or depression, behavioural problems such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and being considerably slower at learning.
Some studies have even suggested that it may increase the likelihood of later violent or criminal behaviour.
Their findings have suggested that the effects of stress during pregnancy can last many years, including into adolescence.
The authorities have to keep their eyes also on the environmental conditions of places of work.
In a brochure issued jointly in 2004 by the Malta Unborn Child Movement and the Health Promotion Department, pregnant women were exhorted not to expose themselves to toxic substances at their workplace. They were warned that chemical radiation, solvents and gases may cause problems with pregnancy. They can also cause birth defects.
They were also exhorted to talk to their work managers and their family doctors to figure out how they can avoid dangerous substances and situations such as: strenuous or tiring work; tiring shift changes; very noisy, hot, or cold work places; long working hours and heavy lifting. They were reminded to avoid job stress, vibrations, eyestrain and poor seating conditions.
In 2008 MUCM alerted the Ministry of Health and also the five major trade unions in the movement about this.
It is generally accepted that for optimum results expectant mothers should live in a relaxed state as much as possible. Pressuring women to go out to work and increase the birth rate, without taking the necessary precautions as suggested above, does not fit into a good womb ecology scenario that holds that in the first environment to man, in the womb, both the unborn child and his/her mother have the right to quality, and protected, life during the whole pregnancy.
This implies that the political and industrial authorities have the corresponding duties, and obligations, to protect pregnant women from harm, especially by means of preventive measures, including those contemplated in the Health and Safety Law of 1994. The law should also protect pregnant women from con-veniently being declared “surplus to requirements” on the places of work to avoid worsening what are already very stressful situations.
A genuine belief in greater corporate social responsibility can help managers and employers help pregnant women throughout the whole period of pregnancy, as it should be, also for the benefit of Maltese society.
There is also a great economic cost if they fail to do so.
Tony Mifsud is coordinator, Malta Unborn Child Movement.