By Lizzy Carr
Chief of Field Office, UNICEF Nigeria Bauchi Field Office Dr Tushar Rane has called on governments and stakeholders to encourage breastfeeding policies that will have paid maternity leave for six months and flexible return to work options for breastfeeding women workers.
Rane stated this at a media engagement to commemorate the 2023 World Breastfeeding Week in Azare, Bauchi state.
He said nursing mothers also need regular lactation breaks during working hours and adequate facilities that will enable them to continue exclusive breastfeeding for six months.
“When working mothers have sufficient paid leave they can meet the essential nutritional needs of their young children.”
Rane added that states are yet to ratify the recently adopted 16 weeks of maternity leave for federal public Servants.
The UNICEF Nutrition Specialist Bauchi Field Office, Philomena Irene in a paper presentation titled,” Let’s talk breast milk: the life-preserving super food for babies; trends in breastfeeding in Bauchi Field Office states said that exclusive breastfeeding prevented 10 million cases of childhood diarrhea in Nigeria.
She revealed that 103,742 children’s lives are saved each year through exclusive breastfeeding.
“Exclusive breastfeeding saves families formula cost of N13.832 billion in a year as it also prevents the loss of N3.3 trillion a year in cognitive losses, adding N54.6 billion to Nigeria’s economy as a result of increased productivity.
According to her, breastfed children have greater chances of survival in the early months than non-breastfed children.
She added that an exclusively breastfed child is 14 times less likely to die in the first six months than a non-exclusively breastfed child.
“An estimated 13% of child deaths could be averted if 90% of mothers exclusively breastfed their infants for the first six months of life.
Also speaking, the Executive Chairman, of Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (BSPHCDA), Dr Rilwanu Mohammed said the state government would soon enact a law that will take care of both working mothers and students in the state.
The law, he noted if passed would give women six or four months maternity leave so also for mothers who give birth in schools.
He said this is necessary because exclusive breastfeeding was key to human lives and child’s survival, adding that breast is the first immunization of a child as he comes into the world.
“Let us look at a breastfeeding mother, let us create an enabling environment for mothers to strive.
“Let us ensure that we inform the fathers, grandfather, and caregiver that a working-class mother or student is an important mother and should have a safe place, privacy in her working place, and flexible time for her to go home and breastfeed her baby.
“We have talked about the provision of creches in workplaces to give working mothers to have privacy for her to breastfeed their baby,”
He further added that the law, when enacted, would enable working mothers and students to have time flexibility to go home and breastfeed their babies after the resumption of the six or four months of maternity leave in the state.
