Civil society seeks workplace support for exclusive breastfeeding
Advocates of improved breastfeeding of children in Nigeria have called for businesses to help improve the number of babies exclusively breastfed by changing workplace policies in favour of mothers. The Business Network arm of Civil Societies Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) wants businesses to support paid maternity leave and put up programmes to […]
Advocates of improved breastfeeding of children in Nigeria have called for businesses to help improve the number of babies exclusively breastfed by changing workplace policies in favour of mothers.
The Business Network arm of Civil Societies Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) wants businesses to support paid maternity leave and put up programmes to support lactation in the workplace.
Angela Attah, coordinator of the network of businesses under CS-SUNN in Nigeria, said workplace nutrition “can dramatically improve the health and wellbeing of female workers and their families.”
“It ends up being good for business through improved productivity and morale among staff,” Attah explained at a workshop in Abuja.
The network also wants businesses to afford women the “right and opportunity to privately breastfeed at work” and help limit the marketing of breastmilk substitutes—a target for the first 1,000 days of a child’s life from conception to two years of age.
“The right nutrition during this 1,000-day window can have a profound impact on a child’s ability to grow, learn and rise out of poverty,” Attah said.
“It can also shape a society’s long-term, stability and prosperity.”
Scientific evidence indicates a good 1,000-day nutrition could save up to one million lives eachyear, reduce the human and economic burden of TB, malaria and HIV/AIDS, reduce the risk for developing noncommunicable diseases as diabetes and other chronic conditions later in life, improve education achievement and earning potential as well as increase a country’s gross domestic product by at least 3% each year.
To achieve this, Attah said, businesses should aid local production, packaging and sale of micronutrient powders, production of nutritious complementary foods for when babies exceed six months of exclusive breastfeeding, and food fortification.
Attah said Nigerian businesses could adopt a breastfeeding toolkit already at work in Vietnam that would require businesses to set up breastfeeding rooms and monitor how it is used.
The toolkit, developed under the programme Alive and Thrive, stipulated seven months paid maternity leave—one month before delivery paid by the company and the other six months paid by social insurance; an extra $7 added to monthly salary for employees with children under one year old, another $7 added to salary for each of three months a pregnant woman had attended antenatal clinic, and at least a daily one-hour break to express milk for workers with a child under one year.