UNICEF is among the most recognised social welfare organizations in the world.
ARMSTRONG ALLAHMAGANI, Bauchi –
The United Nations Children’s Fund has stated that only 26.4 percent of children aged 0 to 5 months in Bauchi State are exclusively breastfed according to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2021 report.
A Nutrition Specialist, UNICEF Bauchi Field Office, Philomena Irene, stated this in a goodwill message at the commemoration of the 2023 World Breastfeeding Week, at the Abubakar Umar State Secretariat, Bauchi.
She said that while the world is on track to reach the 2025 target of 50 per cent exclusive breastfeeding rate, Bauchi State is still lagging behind and needs to do more.
Irene said UNICEF is happy to continue to collaborate with the Bauchi State Government to celebrate this year’s World breastfeeding Week which has the theme: “Enabling Breastfeeding – Making a Difference for Working Parents.”
She added that optimal infant feeding is a building block for human capital development and essential to child survival, health, and development, while poor Infant and Young Child Feeding practices are a major contributor to the high burden of infant and childhood morbidity and mortality.
“Scientific evidence reported in the 2016 and 2023 Lancet Breastfeeding series confirmed that the benefits of breastfeeding include fewer childhood infections, increased intelligence, probable protection against overweight and diabetes, and cancer prevention for mothers.
“In Bauchi State, only 26.4 percent of children aged 0 to 5 months are exclusively breastfed according to the MIC’s 2021 report. While the world is on track to reach the 2025 target of 50 per cent exclusive breastfeeding rate, Bauchi State needs to do more,” she said.
According to her, one of the primary barriers to breastfeeding or early cessation of breastfeeding is the prevalence of workplace challenges noting that women require sufficient time and support to breastfeed successfully.
She opined that women with less than three months of maternity leave tend to have shorter breastfeeding durations than those with three or more months of leave.
Irene said: “Nigeria currently implements two maternity entitlement provisions. The first, recognized at all levels of public service and codified in the Nigerian Labour Act, provides up to 12 weeks of maternity leave with at least 50% of salary and, upon return to work, half an hour twice a day during working hours to breastfeed.
“The second, recently adopted by the Federal Public Service and yet to be ratified by the states and local government civil service, is a 16-week maternity leave provision with full pay and two hours off each day to breastfeed up to six months after the employee resumes duty.
“In addition to these domestic policies, the Government of Nigeria has signed on to the International Labour Organization Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No. 183) and its accompanying Recommendation (No. 191).
“Across the states in Nigeria, targeting the UNICEF 19 focus states, different provisions apply depending on whether a woman is employed by the Federal, State, or Local government. For example, Lagos, Enugu, and Kaduna states offer mothers 24 weeks of fully paid maternity leave. In comparison, Lagos and Enugu states provide ten working days and three weeks of paternity leave to new fathers.
“According to the study of Maternity and Paternity Leave Entitlements and Workplace Lactation Policies and Practices conducted by A&T and UNICEF in 2019, only 9% of organizations had a workplace breastfeeding policy in Nigeria. However, 100% of organizations were supportive of implementing breastfeeding-friendly programmes.”
She stated that: “We are calling on the State Government to extend paid maternity leave from four months to six months, establish creches in the workplace and consider a 14-day paternity leave for state civil servants.”
In his speech, the Executive Chairman, Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Rilwan Mohammed, said that the State Government was working on sponsoring a bill to the Assembly to protect breastfeeding mothers and give them more time to take care of their babies.
“We need a law that all offices and agencies must provide a creche for working class mothers. We will also want to encourage all the heads of agencies to note that the mother that is breastfeeding for six months must have a flexible hour, she can leave and go back home by 1.00pm. We will also make a law on it.
“If you are working and breastfeeding, it is a very tiring thing, so we want them to do six months exclusive breastfeeding without water and anything. I plead with the wife of the Governor that this will require her support after meeting with the stakeholders and the bill is sent to the State House of Assembly for enactment. Already, the federal government has done and will follow and do the same,” he stated.
