Breastfeeding: Nigerian Governors set to approve 6 months maternity leave for nursing mothers

Governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress are set to implement six months maternity leave for nursing mothers in order to ensure proper breastfeeding habit.

This was revealed in communiqué of the Secretaries to State Governments of the APC controlled states issued at the end of a virtual meeting on October 6th and released by the Secretariat of the Progressives Governors’ Forum, in Abuja, on Thursday.

The virtual meeting with the theme, ‘Developing Common Policy Initiatives on Maternal & Child Nutrition Promotion in the APC States’, was declared the meeting open by the Co-Chairmen of PGF Governance Programme Steering Committee, Simon Bako Lalong, Governor of Plateau State, while Jigawa State counterpart, Mohammed Abubakar Badaru, declared the meeting close.

The communique which was jointly signed by Alhaji Adamu Fanini (SGS Jigawa state) and his Plateau State counterpart, Prof. Danladi Atu, noted that the overarching objective was to identify salient and common initiatives of Maternal and Child Nutrition that can be replicated across all the APC controlled States.

“At the end of the (virtual) meeting, the following resolutions were reached: In view of the importance of parental support for children at birth and the health of the nursing parents, the meeting recommends that the APC controlled states should prioritize implementation of 180 days (6 months) maternity leave for women.

“The meeting observed the importance of exclusive breastfeeding to the growth and general health of a child and therefore recommends that APC controlled states should encourage and support women to practice six months exclusive breastfeeding for children from birth,” the communique read in part.