Baby Boom or Bane

The recent budget reading grants an allowance of Rs 20,000 for expectant mothers. While the initiative itself is commendable, how do we streamline to ensure that the health of mother and new born really benefit?

Would it be used to pay off a default on the housing loan? Or the grocery tab that been pending for a few months? Or will it be a catalyst for procreation?

Sri Lanka is already the most densely populated independent island nation in the world. We have approximately 400,000 new born babies annually. This allowance if not executed properly may result in a baby boom that will become the bane of this country. 

Ideally the allowance should be provided not as cash, but in the form of rations – food supplements, medicine and other needs of the expectant mother and baby. 

According to a statement made, the allowance will be appropriated over a 9 month period - from the fifth month of pregnancy until the first four months of infancy. Hopefully this scheme will be a contributing factor in reducing iron deficiency amongst the lower income new mothers in the country.  With a bit of luck, the affluent woman, although eligible will not claim it and therefore ensure the long term success of this scheme.

This allowance was announced bearing in mind the needs of the Woman. The scheme will be even more successful if there is secondary stipend for the Woman to practice birth control and sterilization. This procedure for sterilization was a practice started 45 years ago to encourage the concept of small families. The average size of a household then was 6.8 which has now come down to 3.9. This should act as an encouragement for the few who are still with large families. Surprising the allowance paid in the 70’s was Rs. 500/- per sterilization (which seemed a big amount then) and remains the same today. Shouldn’t it be increased to at least Rs 10,000 now? The compounded expenditure of child and adolescent care costs much more due to the socialist policies of our country.

It is always the mother who is left holding the burden: even if it is one, two or three children. The family has to be fed, clothed and sheltered appropriately. Therefore, the Woman should be empowered with more education.

Proper education on family planning should be the next step of this scheme. The masses should be made aware that family planning is a choice and at current growth rates we cannot possible sustain. The environmental and social cost of overpopulation must be addressed and people should be made to understand the rewards of small families.

If we fail to do so from the outset, the very scheme that addresses the needs of the woman, may just end up making her a means to an end. We as a society, will be left to bear the burden of this baby boom! #WeCanChangeSL