Japanese politician Yuka Ogata had intended to change old fashioned attitudes towards working mothers when she brought her baby to a local council meeting last year.

But the move appears to have backfired - at least in her own workplace - after members of the Kumamoto Municipal Assembly this week approved a proposal to tighten its regulations and restrict "non-members" from entering its assembly hall.

The proposed regulation, which would include babies in the non-members category, was passed because their rules previously lacked stipulations on who was allowed to enter the chamber, according to Kyodo News.

It comes just months after Ms Ogata was confronted by angry council members when she opted to bring her then seven-month-old son to an assembly session, eventually having to place her baby in the care of a friend before returning to work.

While her actions were widely admired around the world following international media attention, the reaction within the assembly was the opposite: she found herself having to apologise after being reprimanded and was issued with a written warning.