Group pushes clampdown on employers denying women 6-month maternity leave

Civil Society Scaling-up Nutritionin Nigeria (CS-SUNN) has called on the National Assembly to enact legislation to promote breastfeeding, protect nursing  mothers and clamp down on employers who fail to give six months maternity to nursing mothers. In a statement marking World Breastfeeding Week, CS-SUNN coordinator Beatrice Eluaka, said the legislation should also protect safe medications […]

 Civil Society Scaling-up Nutritionin Nigeria (CS-SUNN) has called on the National Assembly to enact legislation to promote breastfeeding, protect nursing  mothers and clamp down on employers who fail to give six months maternity to nursing mothers. In a statement marking World Breastfeeding Week, CS-SUNN coordinator Beatrice Eluaka, said the legislation should also protect safe medications for mothers and their infants and ensure strong regulations on marketing of breast milk substitutes or baby formulas. "So that nursing mothers in Nigeria can be entitled to the constitutional right to breastfeed and newborns the constitutional right to be breastfed anywhere, any day and at all times," Eluaka said. Only around three in 10 children are exclusively breastfed, and the National Strategic Plan of Action on Nutrition for half of all children to be exclusively breastfed by 2018 "The goal of sustainable promotion and support for optimal breastfeeding will require priority attention, increased funding as well as monitoring of activities during and post implementation," said Eluaka. The NDHS 2013 estimates five million newborns lack essential nutrients and antibodies that would protect them from diseases and death as they are not being exclusively breastfed. It also showed 37% of children under-five years are stunted, 29% are underweight while 18% are wasted. "These negative indices continue to act as a brake on Nigeria’s economic development as globally, stunting is currently an indicator for measuring a country’s development," said Eluaka.