AFRIBABY canvases six months maternity leave for Nigerian women

By NJOKU ONYEKACHI JET
Chief Executive Officer N-HANSER, Dr. Odion Oscar Odibo, has said that if government does not provide enabling environment for nursing mothers to exclusively breastfeed their babies for six months as stipulated by law, then, all it is doing is policy summersault.
It is on this basis that Odibo who is the coordinator; African International Baby Exhibition (Afribaby) is canvassing for a six months maternity leave for women.

In this chat with Daily Sun, he disclosed that his organization has finalized plans to send a Bill to the National Assembly to pursue the cause. He also, spoke on the concept of Afribaby.
The concept

The concept of Afribaby is to create synergy, coordination, and connectivity between all organizations, institutions, companies that have one thing or the other to do with babies. Ensure that different organizations cooperate and help themselves, ultimately, our babies will be the beneficiaries of such cooperation because we have a scenario where infant mortality and even, maternal mortality is very high. There’s no doubt about that.

We’re doing this because; there isn’t the right atmosphere or connectivity between different organizations doing different things for babies. We have baby-friendly hospitals where there are pediatricians who’re doing their best in their own enclave. We have orphanages that are picking up and taking care of motherless babies. You have banks that have products for newborn babies. There’re crèches that take care of babies in the absence of their mothers, particularly, daycare centres.

We have even non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are advocating on baby matters, we have pharmaceutical companies producing drugs for babies. So, all these organizations work separately but there’s no connection between them. They cannot even help themselves and they need help. So, the idea of Afribaby is to bring them together so that they can harness fully, what each has to offer and ultimately, help our babies and humanity.
What mothers stand to gain

Mothers stand to gain a lot. Because if you look at the concept of Afribaby, it concerns mothers, fathers, babies and our society. Part of the content of Afribaby is education and enlightenment. Often, we have a symposium where we deal with matters that are arising or are in the front burner. Our last exhibition and symposium dealt with issues on breastfeeding, career development and motherhood. These days, we have mothers that are also working; they’re assisting their husbands to contribute to their wellbeing. And some are single parents. We’re looking at this vis-a-vise the question of maternity leave.

Talking about maternity leave, the law grants only three months. But, federal Ministry of Health – the state government, the medical community, the World Health Organization (WHO), are saying six months exclusive breastfeeding. So, how do you reconcile this? This issue was what we trashed out at that symposium where it came to the fore that government should do something. If they’re saying that mothers should have exclusive breastfeeding for six moths, they should provide enabling environment for them to be able to do so. That is make maternity leave, six months.

If they’re not able to do so, all of that is mere policy summersault. Its mere talk. So, these are the areas where mothers stand to gain. We want to encourage breastfeeding. We want to ensure that it is not just for you to have exclusive breastfeeding for six months but for as long as two years. I was breastfed for two years. And I know that mothers stand to gain in breastfeeding through Afribaby’s campaign.

For fathers, we have a babies’ competition. This competition is meant to have fathers around. If daddy is not in attendance, then you’re not qualified. So, we use that opportunity to drum our message about exclusive breastfeeding because you cannot have exclusive breastfeeding when the father does not support the woman –help with finances, house chores, and other things that could take away the woman’s attention from breastfeeding.
Nannies

Part of the Afribaby project is to train nannies. Now, let me quickly run through the projects. First, we have the symposium, which deals with the issue as they arise. We have the babies’ competition, then, you have nannies training. The nannies training is meant to modernize our nannies, to help them to have latest knowledge about care giving. And to help change some of the terrible things we have witnessed in the business of care giving.

For instance, you give your baby to a caregiver, because you have to go to work; we have discovered that in some cases, some nannies, not all of them; give pill to the babies so they can sleep off. And this is very, very dangerous. When this is done again and again - and the parents are not even aware of a thing like this; what happens? After a while, the baby begins to become abnormal. And you begin to wonder, why is my baby behaving abnormally. You wouldn’t know it was as result of what has been done to that baby at the care centre, under the care of the nanny.
Again, some of these nannies or day care centres hire out these babies for alms begging. And the parents do not know. You’d be at work, thinking that everything is well or that your baby is safe. But, something can go wrong. Now, we want to sensitize nannies on these problems. We want to change this habit and ensue that care giving is given appropriately.

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/goodhealth/2011/may/03/goodhealth-03-05-2011-03.htm