FG Urges Private Sector To Encourage Breastfeeding In Work Places

In an event tagged “Breastfeeding: A Key to Sustainable Development’’, the Head of Nutrition in the Ministry of Health, Dr Chris Isokpunwu, advised nursing mothers to breastfeed their newly born babies within 30 minutes of birth for healthy living of the child.

He said there is the need to protect and encourage nursing mothers to exclusively breastfeed their child in work places.

According to Isokpunwu, it is critical to engage in exclusive breastfeeding of a child in the first 1,000 days of child’s birth, noting that the practice will help reduce the child’s chances of falling ill frequently.

“Breast milk is good for the child and exclusive breastfeeding protects the child from ill-health, frequent illnesses and also ensure that there is a reduction in the number of time a child is exposed to infections,’’ Isokpunwu said.

“We need to protect breastfeeding and support breastfeeding in work places, and we are calling on the private sectors to set up crèches, especially the big ones.

“The small ones can set up breastfeeding rooms and encourage women to go on breastfeeding break to adequately breast feed their children,’’ Isokpunwu added.

Nutrition Advocacy Specialist with United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Mr Zakaria Fusheini, also advised the federal government to introduce polices that would encourage nursing mothers to breastfeed their babies as frequent as possible.

“It is not enough to urge mothers to exclusively breastfeed their children in the first six months of lives, but adequate modalities and policies, among others, must be put in place to make such practice fulfilling,’’ said Fusheini.