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Cambodia's Working Moms Turn to Baby Formula

Khan Sukummono

   Before Sim Ark gave birth to her second child, she didn't think much
   about what a workplace needed to accommodate a new mother.

   Now that she's a working mother rather than a stay-at-home mom as she
   was with her first child, Sim Ark knows.

   "I want to have a daycare facility right in my workplace so that I can
   visit my baby while working," said Sim Ark, 29, who works at the You Li
   International factory in Bavet city, in Cambodia's Svay Rieng province.

   Three months after giving birth to her son Ham Ya Oudom, after many
   calls from factory administrators, Sim Ark returned to work. She didn't
   want to risk losing her job.

   Her absence from home during the day meant the baby switched from
   breastfeeding to bottle-fed meals of infant formula. At night, he
   switched back to breast milk unless Sim Ark found herself working
   overtime, which she says causes her milk to dry up.

   Everyone in Sim Ark's house -- Phing Tithya, her husband, 29; Sim Lat,
   her sister, 40; and So Yam, her mother, 80 -- knows how to mix
   breast-milk substitute (BMS) with boiled water or bottled mineral water
   to feed Ham Ya Oudom, a healthy, hungry baby who is happy except when
   he wakes up. Then, unless one of his adults carries him on a walk
   around the house or the village, he cries.

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