Mothers have been admonished to initiate breastfeeding within one hour of birth in order to greatly impact on the cognitive development of their children.
The Technical Advisor on Social and Behaviior Change Communication, SBCC, for Alive & Thrive, Kawu Auwalu, who said this, explained that early introduction to breastmilk through initiation of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, would help a child to be healthy and contributes meaningfully to the development of society.
“Scientifically, it has been proved that an infant exclusively breastfed or put to breastmilk as early as possible will have a better cognitive development. The child will understand things faster, and intelligently.
“That child has opportunity to be healthy and chances of falling sick are minimal. There would not be challenges like diarrhoea, while minimal cases of pneumonia are recorded and in that respect, the resources of parents are saved.
Auwalu regretted infant feeding within the first 1,000 days in Nigeria is not encouraging as infants are not properly breastfed, “They are exposed to different feedings that are not good for them and those that are above six months don’t have food diversity. What they are given is not appropriate.”
He explained that Alive and Thrive project which is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation aims to support behavior change practices on infant feeding in Nigeria.
State Team Lead, Alive & Thrive, Lagos State, Uche Ralph-Opara said the strategy will provide information and opportunity for advocacy to encourage government to put more resources into infant feeding practices.
“Help government to work with supporting body like NAFDAC to be able to come out with implementation plan to address infant feeding practices. Lagos pioneered breastfeeding mothers to take six month leave and we want that to be properly domesticated inside the strategy.
“Also it is to provide capacity and skill to health works in Lagos both public and private facilities to know the appropriate thing to do when an infant is born, to put a child on breast milk immediately and also to support the mothers where she need assistance.
The State Nutrition Officer for Lagos State Ministry of Health, Olubunmi Ibrahim however commended Alive & Thrive in sharing the vision of healthy society with government.
“We are committed to improving the nutritional status of infant and young children in the state and we appreciate the support of Alive and Thrive. Presently the exclusive breastfeed figure for Lagos State is 51.8 percent which we are aiming that by 2020 we can achieve about 65 percent.
By: Gabriel Olawale
Vanguard News
ABUJA: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
PORTHARCOURT: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
LAGOS: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
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