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| breastfeeding |
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said that low
exclusive breast feeding and inappropriate complementary feeding was
responsible for increasing rate of stunted growth among children in
Nigeria.
Making a presentation at a workshop on child malnutrition
at Ibadan, the UNICEF Nutrition Specialist, Mrs Ada Ezeogu, added that
33% of children are already stunted following reports by the National
Health and Nutrition Survey (NHNS) survey of 2015.
She further
explained that children who are exclusively breastfed including with the
right complementary feed, after six months have better chances of
survival than children who are not.
Her words, “An estimated 13%
of child deaths could be averted if 90% of mothers exclusively breastfed
their infants for the first six months of life.
“If the same
proportion of mothers provided adequate and timely complementary feeding
for their infants from 6 to 24 months, a further 6% of child deaths
could be prevented.
“Breastfed children have at least 6 times greater chance of survival in the early months than non-breastfed children,” she said.
Ezeogu
explained that the effects of malnutrition in children, goes a long way
to not only affect their learning ability when in school but may also
affect the female child when she becomes a mother.
“a malnourished mother will not produce a healthy baby as she is already lacking in nutrients required by her baby,” she added.
Urging
mothers to pay attention to feeding of their babies especially for the
first two years, the nutrition Specialist maintained that the children
from 0 to two years are still undergoing a critical stage of growth and
development that requires the right nutrition.
In the same vein,
another Nutrition Specialist from the Federal Ministry of Health, Mrs
Omotayo Ogunbunmi revealed that while Nigeria tops the list of states in
the sub Sahara with malnourished children, it’s second in the world
with stunted, wasted and underweight children.
