Make room for nursing mothers to breastfeed – First Lady

First Lady Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, has urged employers to adhere to maternity protection provisions that support maternity leave to create enabling environments for nursing mothers to exclusively breastfeed their babies.

Exclusive breast feeding of babies by nursing mothers, Mrs Akufo-Addo said, requires active support of employers and policymakers.

She urged employers to reduce the roles assigned to nursing mothers to prevent them from making excuses to breast feed, since "breast feeding is the best feeding option for our babies", which will save lives for a prosperous society.

Experts, she said, have estimated that nations that fail to act and scale up intervention support for exclusive breast feeding, lose millions of dollars due to mortality in women and children, which affects the economy.

Mrs Akufo-Addo said this at the national launch of World Breastfeeding Week held in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region on the theme: "Breastfeeding: foundation of life".

She entreated all stakeholders to support breastfeeding campaigns to create awareness on the need for nursing mothers to adequately and exclusively breastfeed their babies.

The First Lady commended the Ghana Health Service for the recent increase in breastfeeding rate, but indicated that more can be done to improve their effort.