For the first time in Italy, a Member of Parliament breastfed a child in Parliament. She has become the first woman MP to do so. According to media reports, Italian female MP Gilda Sportiello breastfed her son Federico in the Chamber of Deputies. After this, all the MPs welcomed her decision with loud applause. Along with this, she was praised a lot. The parliamentary panel has made a rule for women to fulfill the responsibility of a mother along with their official duties.
Breastfeeding is normal in many countries. But for the first time in the lower house of a male-dominated country like Italy, a female MP has done this by getting her child breastfed. People appreciated her for fulfilling the responsibility of being a mother amidst the compulsions of the workplace. While presiding over the session of Parliament, Giorgio Mule said that this is the first time, with the support of all parties, someone has breastfed a child.
In Italy, in November last year, a parliamentary rules panel made the rule. Under this rule, the panel had permitted women MPs to come to the Parliament Chamber with their children and breastfeed the child for up to one year. Gilda Sportiello, associated with Italy’s left-wing Five-Star Movement party, said that many women stop breastfeeding prematurely. But they do not do this out of their own will but have to do so due to the compulsions of work.
Two-thirds of the parliamentarians in Italy’s parliament are male
Two-thirds of the parliamentarians in Italy are male. This happened for the first time in the history of Italy in October last year when Giorgia Meloni took charge as the female PM. However, Wednesday’s incident was the first in Italy. 13 years before that Licia Ronzulli, now a senator for the center-right Forza Italia party, breastfed her little daughter at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.