A 32-year old mother of three children, Margret Edet, whose third child, Eno Abasi Edet is currently on admission at the general hospital, Calabar, the Cross Rivers state capital is faced with the challenges of what life could be to the poor when there is no good health.

 

Mrs. Edet, as she told her story, is a regular visitor to the hospital as the children are always down with different illnesses even as they are well fed with different kinds of foods. The first child, Okon who had malaria and was admitted in the hospital, was discharged from the general hospital not later than two weeks when the last born, Eno Abasi was admitted in the same children ward of the hospital.

 

Speaking with some journalist who visited her, Mrs. Edet, the plantain seller said, “I don’t know what to do again, I’m tired of this sufferings. There is hardly a month without me and one of my children visiting this hospital. They are always sick. I nearly lost my first child after his 5th year birthday. It was this hospital that saved me. Even with the little money I make from the sales of plantain; we eat three times a day, we feed them well. Because my children are fast at eating food, I always start feeding them with what we have on time.

 

“I buy them medicine whenever I see any sign of illness in them, but they wouldn’t get well until we come to the hospital even when the money is not there. My husband is a taxi driver and I sell plantain by the road side but we spend the little money we have on the health of these children. I don’t know what the matter is. Are we cursed or is somebody after us?”

 

The story of Mrs. Edet set the tone for discussion at the 2-day Media Dialogue on Child Malnutrition, themed: “spend more money on nutrition, stop child malnutrition in Nigeria” organized by the United Nation Children Fund (UNICEF) in collaboration with Child Rights Bureau of the Federal Ministry of Information in Calabar recently.

 

The workshop which brought together nutritionists, editors and health correspondents of various media organizations in the country, was to seek ways out of deaths from malnutrition in the country through advocacy on exclusive breastfeeding and good feeding.

 

Speaking at the event, the Deputy Director and Head of Nutrition, Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. Chris Osa Isokponwu said the issue of malnutrition is not as a result of lack of food alone, but also lack of knowledge of what to eat.

 

He added that, many mothers, particularly nursing mothers do not know what to eat and what to feed their children with.

 

He urged mothers not to concentrate on foreign foods as complementary foods in feeding their children but to devote attention on traditional foods that are tested and trusted for consumption for both adult and children in the country.

 

 

Isokponwu advised nursing mothers to always eat vegetables and natural fruits in order to give the necessary nutrient to the babies.

On the part of government, the head of nutrition said federal government has developed a 5-year strategic plan of action for nutrition which defined the role of government, media, non-governmental organization and business men and women in curbing malnutrition in the country.

 

He said that in order to tackle the issue of malnutrition in the country, government has also introduced infant and young child feeding, maintaining that if all hands are on desk in this matter, the problem of malnutrition in the country will be solved.

In his presentation titled: Why Nutrition? UNICEF Chief Nutritionist, Arjan De Wagt said 55 percent of child mortality is associated with malnutrition while advocating for exclusive breastfeeding in order to reduce the high level of child’s death to the barest minimum.

 

He said exclusive breastfeeding has the potential to save more children’s lives than any other preventive intervention, noting that estimated 13 percent of child deaths could be averted if 90 percent of mothers exclusively breastfed their infants for the first six months of life.

 

According to him, if the same portion of mothers provided adequate and timely complementary feeding for their infants from 6 to 24 months, a further 6 per cent of child’s deaths could be prevented.

 

Making his presentation also, the coordinator, African Centre for Media and Information Literacy, Abuja, Chido Onuma said for the country to succeed in the fight against malnutrition, the media has a lot of roles to play.

 

He said that the media has the duty of educating the policy makers on the need for them to provide good roads and water for the people at the rural areas, stating that the problem of nutrition is not restricted to the urban areas, but mostly at the rural areas.

 

On his part, the UNICEF communication specialist, Geoffrey Njoku urged the media practitioners at the event to be nutrition ambassadors and intensify efforts on the advocacy for good nutrition for the wellbeing of the Nigerian child.

 

At the end of the 2-day workshop, the participants resolved to keep the nutrition advocacy going and adopted the hash tag, #Stop Child Malnutrition In Nigeria to be constantly used in all social media platforms as part of campaign towards bringing the issue of child malnutrition in Nigeria to the front burner of national discourse.

 

By: Abuja, Akor Ejumene 

Daily Times