Nigeria to increase maternity leave period to six months from the current four to encourage breastfeeding

NIGERIA plans to increase the time nursing mothers are allowed to take as maternity leave to six months from the current four as part of a drive to encourage more women to enter into the labour market.

 

Yesterday, health minister Professor Isaac Adewole, revealed that he was having talks with the ministry of labour and employment to extend the maternity leave period. Speaking at a ministerial briefing and inauguration of the 2018 World Breastfeeding Week and High Level Policy Dialogue on Breastfeeding in Abuja on Thursday, Professor Adewole used the opportunity to urge husbands to stop struggling with their babies over their wives' breasts.

 

Speaking on the theme Breastfeeding: Foundation of Life, the minister said breastfeeding remained the surest way to have a healthy baby. He added that he was currently in talks with the minister of labour and employment, Dr Chris Ngige, about the possibility of extending maternity leave because it would give women more time to breastfeed their babies.

 

Professor Adewole said: “What has been shown clearly is that the brain, which we actually need to drive everything we do in life, is sorted out in the first two years. So, if you give the baby good food, good protein, we will have good workers and good leaders in the future but if we don’t give them good food, then we will have a generation of jesters over the years and that is not what we want in this country.

 

"Breastfeeding is a national investment in the cerebral architecture of our citizens and in the future development of our country, so, let us work together to promote it. To the men, please allow the women to give it to the babies, don’t share or compete with the babies, only promote it.

 

Minister of state for budget and national planning, Hadjia Zainab Ahmed, said statistics showed that of the 7m babies born every year, less than 25% were exclusively fed on breast milk. She added that babies who are well breastfed hardly fall sick while mothers have a reduced risk of ovarian and breast cancer.

 

Hadjia Ahmed added: “Health practitioners have advised us that initiating breastfeeding within the first hours of life reduces the rate of neonatal mortality by up to 22%. It also reduces the risk of asthma and obesity in the babies.

 

“Approximately, 7m children are born in Nigeria every year and according to the 2014 National Nutrition Survey, only 25% are exclusively breastfed between the ages of zero and six months.”

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