Gilda Sportiello: Italian lawmaker Gilda Sportiello, who is from the left-leaning 5-Star Movement, has become the first politician to breastfeed her newborn baby in the lower House.
Gilda Sportiello on Wednesday sat down with her baby boy in the higher benches, took part in a vote on public administration, and then started to breastfeed him to unanimous applause, triggering a round of applause from fellow members.
Agencies reported the event was underscored by the acting lower-house speaker in traditionally male-dominated Italy. Gilda Sportiello has fought for a rule so that women can be allowed to nurse their babies during a parliamentary session.
‘Now we’ll speak quietly’
“It’s the first time, with the backing of all parties. Best wishes to Federico for a long, free, and peaceful life,” Giorgio Mule said as he chaired the parliamentary session. “Now we’ll speak quietly,” he added.
“Too many women stop breastfeeding ahead of time, not by choice, but rather because they are forced to return to the workplace,” said Sportiello.
“From today on, if the highest Italian institutions allow workers to nurse at their workplace, then no woman, in any profession, can be denied this right,” Sportiello said.
Inspiration for all workplaces in Italy
Italian daily La Repubblica quoted Sportiello as saying that she hopes her pioneering act will inspire all workplaces in Italy to make it easier for working mothers to nurse their infants if they want to while on the job.
A parliamentary rules panel last year gave the go-ahead for women lawmakers to enter the chamber with their children and breastfeed them up to the age of one.
Giorgia Meloni took office in October as Italy’s first woman prime minister. However, two-thirds of the country’s lawmakers are men. Thirteen years ago Licia Ronzulli, now a senator in the centre-right Forza Italia party, breastfed her daughter in the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
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