The first lady of Ghana is out to stand in for the favour of nursing mothers and their babies in the country.
She recently made an appeal to the authorities of the country to intensify their support systems towards nursing mothers by creating better platforms in terms of conducive environments for lactating mothers to breastfeed their babies in their workplaces, markets, homes, communities and at social gatherings.
In addition to that request, she calls for an extension of the period of maternity leave to a minimum of 14 weeks as stipulated by International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Maternity Protection Convention, 2000.
She said, stressing “that a large number of Ghanaian babies are deprived of the major nutritional, health and psychological benefits of breastfeeding.”
“The health benefits of breastfeeding don´t just last during infancy, but are sustained throughout childhood, adolescence and into adulthood as well,” she noted.
Therefore, she calls for “strong partnership made up of government, health partners, health practitioners, communities, non-governmental organizations, media and civil society to advocate and help create utmost protective and supportive environment exclusively for breastfeeding”.
“Make sure that every child born in Ghana will be given a chance to survive, grow and develop into a healthy and strong citizen,” she concludes.
