By Gom Mirian
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has disclosed that 34 per cent of infants between the ages of 0 and 6 months are exclusively breastfed.
It said this is fuelled by lack of fully paid maternal leave, as only 7 of Nigeria’s 36 states offer the benefit.
UNICEF Nigeria Country Representative, Cristian Munduate, who made the disclosure in her message to commemorate World Breastfeeding Week 2023 on Monday night, noted that these figures indicate a major setback for Nigeria in achieving the World Health Assembly’s 70 per cent breastfeeding target by 2030.
She said the lack of adequate maternity leave and low breastfeeding rates can have adverse impacts on both mother’s and child’s health.
Munduate stressed that “in Nigeria, improved breastfeeding practices could save over 100,000 children’s lives each year, save US$22 million in health care treatment costs related to inadequate breastfeeding, and generate an additional US$21 billion for the economy over children’s productive years by increasing cognitive capacity and preventing premature mortality in the early years. There is evidence today that every 1000 Naira invested in supporting breastfeeding can yield an estimated 35,000 Naira in economic returns for Nigeria.
“While I acknowledge significant strides made in the past two decades in Nigeria to increase exclusive breastfeeding rates, it remains evident that more needs to be done.
“Presently, women make up 20 million out of the 46 million workforce in Nigeria; 95 per cent are within the informal sector, while the formal sector only employs 5 per cent. Shockingly, only 9 per cent of organizations have a workplace breastfeeding policy, with only 1.5 per cent in the public sector. Women in the informal sector have nearly no support for breastfeeding.”
However, she maintained that to enhance the health of the nation, the government must take the necessary steps to guarantee the supply of proper maternity benefits and to emphaside the value of exclusive breastfeeding.
