Group seeks six months maternity leave for mothers at workplace

• MAN advocates paternity leave, urges more time for breastfeeding 

A group, Alive & Thrice, has urged the government and the private sector to extend maternity leave from three months to six months.

It also advocated the provision of two crèches/lactation rooms at workplaces to support working mothers.
 
Project Director of the group, Victor Ogbodo gave the charge, yesterday, in Lagos, during a workshop to commemorate Breastfeeding week.

ALSO, representative of Director-General, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Emmanuel Okuma, said: “MAN is supporting breastfeeding programme and will also help to educate firms on the importance of establishing crèches in their workplaces to allow nursing mothers have time to feed their babies.

“We will also encourage paternity leave so that men will have time to impart knowledge to the babies. We should also consider the traditional way of breastfeeding where mothers will breastfeed babies until they start talking.”

In her goodwill message, Chairman, Board of Trustees, Association of Nigerian Women Business Network, Alaba Lawson, said: “Our mothers breastfed us until we got to primary school. We even gave them a seat to sit so we could suck breasts and this gave us the opportunity to grow well and developed our brains.
 
“But civilisation has taken the opportunity of being close to our mothers. Mothers no longer breastfeed their children like they should because they don’t want to lose their figure 8. They claim they want to look young and that has caused us problems.
 
“So, I want to commend the initiative and ask that we should go back to exclusive breastfeeding. Organisations must establish a daycare for their members of staff.