By Adeyinka Adeniran
As the world marks World Breastfeeding Week, a critical perspective often ignored in mainstream public health reports is taking center stage: the invisible social ecosystem required to sustain a mother’s choice.
According to Celine Lafoucriere, Chief of the UNICEF Field Office in Lagos for Southwest Nigeria, the region’s biggest hurdle isn’t a lack of willingness from mothers, but a profound systemic failure of the community surrounding them.
While breastfeeding is framed universally as a maternal duty, UNICEF’s frontline assessment shifts the spotlight onto the boardrooms, pulpits, and living rooms where the real battle for infant survival is won or lost.
While broad national statistics typically focus solely on nutritional outcomes, Lafoucriere highlights a stark operational gap on the ground, noting that across Nigeria, most mothers do breastfeed, but too few do it the right way, with only one in three babies put to the breast within the first hour of birth and only three in ten exclusively breastfed for six full months without water, formula, or solid food.
Rather than blaming mothers navigating the bustling markets and hospitals of Southwest Nigeria, the UN official redirects accountability upward and outward.
In a region driven by high-paced commerce and corporate growth, the burden has unfairly fallen entirely on women, prompting Lafoucriere to emphasize that structural reform is non-negotiable.
To fix these numbers, UNICEF is challenging local institutional gatekeepers to step up. Employers must give their staff the break and the privacy breastfeeding needs, health workers must put that baby to the breast within the first hour every time, and family members—including husbands, mothers-in-law, pastors, and imams—must stand behind mothers instead of questioning them.
By reframing breastmilk as the first vaccine every baby receives that costs nothing, the narrative concludes with a direct nod to the isolated realities of caregivers, moving past sterile health metrics to acknowledge the individual labor happening behind closed doors.
To every mother in Lagos feeding her child right now, alone in the quiet hours of the night, UNICEF, partners, and the government stand with them as they give their child their first and best gift.
Lafoucriere said, “This week, the world marks World Breastfeeding Week. And here in southwest Nigeria, we have real work to do.
“Breastmilk is the first vaccine every baby receives. It protects against sickness. It builds a stronger brain. It gives a child the best possible start in life. And it costs nothing.
“Across Nigeria, most mothers do breastfeed. But too few do it the right way. Only one in three babies are put to the breast within the first hour of birth. Only three in ten babies are exclusively breastfed for six full months, no water, no formula, no solid food, just breastmilk alone.
“In southwest Nigeria, with our hospitals, our markets, our busy working mothers, we can change that number.
“But a mother cannot do this alone. She needs a workplace that gives her time and space to breastfeed. She needs a health worker who tells her the truth about formula marketing.
“She needs her own mother, her husband, her mother -in-law, her pastor, her imam, standing behind her, not questioning her.
“So today, my message is simple. To every employer, give your staff the break and the privacy breastfeeding needs. To every health worker, put that baby to the breast within the first hour, every time. To every family member, support her, don’t second guess her.
“And to every mother in Lagos feeding her child right now, alone in the quiet hours of the night, we see you. You are giving your child their first and best gift.
“UNICEF, her partners and your government stands with you.”
