Exclusive breastfeeding: FG set to approve six-month maternity leave

…as Niger gov’s wife advocates four-month leave for men

The Federal Government may soon approved a six-month maternity leave for nursing mothers to be able to provide optimal care for their children, particularly with regard to exclusively breastfeeding them.

The government also called on organisations to prioritise the creation of enabling environment that supports working class mothers to be able to breastfeed their children.

It noted that breastfeeding children exclusively for six months provides immense benefits including protection from infections and diseases, development of the brain and cognitive capacities, and growth of children, among other benefits.

The plan was endorsed in Minna yesterday by the wife of Niger State governor, Hajiya Fatima Umar Bago, who also advocated four-week paternity leave for men to enable them support their wives after childbirth.

In a speech during the commemoration of this year’s world breastfeeding week in Abuja, the Director and Head of Micronutrient Deficiency Control, Federal Ministry of Health, Chief John Uruakpa John said there was need to encourage both working class and full time mothers to breastfeed their child.

“We also want to get the men involved to provide the enabling environment,” he said at the ceremony whose theme is: enabling breastfeeding, making a difference for working parents.

“It is, however, not a matter of just breastfeeding; you must exclusively breastfeed your child for six months for you to get the best out of that breast milk,” he added.

John noted that from the last National Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) of 2018, only 29 per cent of women exclusively breastfeed their children.

He added: “We have up to 90 per cent of Nigerian women breastfeeding. So, if you minus 29 per cent, you will see that you have almost 60 per cent adding water.

“If we can sensitise this section adding water to stop adding water, then Nigeria will get up to 90 per cent.

“We encourage organisations to provide an environment that will enable our mothers to breastfeed. That is why the government in its wisdom has approved 16 weeks maternity leave, and we are pushing for six months, which we are getting food feelers, and it will soon be approved.

“Even at that, some states have approved six months, and even given the fathers paternity leave of two weeks. Also, the fathers are pushing for more, say four weeks.”

Speaking on behalf of the USAID-funded Breakthrough Action Nigeria Project, Angela Samba said: “The goal of our project is to increase the practice of priority health and nutrition behaviour, which breastfeeding is one of them.

“The workplace has a very significant role to play in ensuring that mothers are able to breastfeed effectively.

“In Nigeria, a lot of mothers breastfeed, yet our stunting rate is very high. The reason is that although mothers breastfeed, they don’t breastfeed appropriately.

“We are advocating optimal breastfeeding.”

Elsewhere in Minna, Niger State, the wife of the state’s governor, Hajiya Fatima Umar Bago, called for approval of four weeks paternity leave for men to enable them support their wives after childbirth.

She also added her voice to the call on the federal government to extend the maternity leave for new mothers from three months to six.

Speaking at the flag-off of the 2023 World Breastfeeding Week in Niger State, Bago said an end should be put to the embarrassment that women who breastfeed in public places face while cretches should be created at workplaces.

She appealed to employers of labour to make workplaces breastfeeding friendly in terms of infrastructure and policy drive, particularly as more women are taking up employment opportunities to support the economy and livelihood of their families.

She said: “I will make myself available to advocate with relevant stakeholders to implement exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life of a baby, continued breastfeeding with appropriate complimentary food for up to two years and beyond, extension of maternity leave from there to six months and the initiation and approval of four weeks paternity leave for our men.” Bago then called for more sensitization to create awareness for breastfeeding among young girls and prospective mothers in order to reduce infant and child mortality in the state.

The Executive Director, Niger State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Ibrahim Dangana, said that to combat maternal and child mortality, the state government had employed 200 midwives and deployed them to all the primary healthcare centres across Niger State.

He called for increased attention to be paid to primary healthcare centres, adding that no government can afford to neglect such centres as they are the closest to the people.

Dangana emphasised that all mothers should be supported to initiate breastfeeding as soon as possible after birth, pointing to the need for mothers to receive practical support to enable them initiate and establish breastfeeding and manage common breastfeeding difficulties.

He said: “The evolving global workplace has seen a lot of women engaged in one form of employment or another.

“The engagement of women in a trade or employment is a positive development, but this is taking a toll on the quality of breastfeeding in terms of duration and frequency.

“Work or any form of employment should not separate the nursing mother from her baby.

“The State Government is committed to providing the resources and championing the best practices for workplace-related breastfeeding support in all 25LGAs across different contract types and sectors, and promoting actions that can be taken to help ensure breastfeeding works for all women who work, wherever they work.

“The Government of Niger State is restructuring all workplaces private and public to enable nursing mothers to breastfeed and work.”

The state Nutrition Officer, Asmau Abubakar Mohammed, said the state breastfeeding rate had increased from 14.7 per cent to 24.7 per cent, Vitamin A Supplementation is at 92 per cent while the state operates 16 Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (IMAM) centres and there are Community Infant and Young Child Feeding initiative in 17 local government areas.

She called on the men to support their wives in breastfeeding saying that their support would help the women to carry out exclusive breastfeeding.

Mohammed appealed to the state government to create more creches and nursing rooms in all MDAs across the state, saying that the available ones were inadequate.

“We need these creches and nursing rooms in each block that houses Ministries, Departments or Agencies so that the women would not need to walk long distances to breastfeed or check on their breastfeeding children,” he said.