NewsUNICEF Urges Nursing Mothers to Embrace Breastfeeding

UNICEF Urges Nursing Mothers to Embrace Breastfeeding

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August 23, (THEWILL) – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has admonished mothers across the globe to embrace the evolving paradigm shift of breastfeeding the child and refocus on the historic opportunity to transform the method the world tackles global commitment in eliminating child malnutrion.

This admonition was made by the UNICEF, Chief of field Office, Enugu, Dr. Ibrahim Conteh while presenting an address at the women conference organised by UNICEF in conjunction with the Ministry of Gender and Venerable Persons held in Enugu.

According to him, the initiation of breastfeeding within the first hours of birth, followed by exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continued breastfeeding for up to two years offers a powerful line of defence against all forms of child malnutrition, including wasting and obesity.

His words,”Breastfeeding also acts as babies first vaccine, protecting them against many common childhood illness. While there has been progress in breastfeeding rates in the last four decades with a 50 per cent increase in the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding globally, the COVID 19 pandemic highlights the fragility of those gains.

Dr Conteh revealed that in Nigeria available statistics indicates that the average duration of exclusive breastfeeding is approximately three months and only three out of every 10 children under six months of age were exclusively breastfed.

“This is an improvement from 17 per cent in 2013 to 29 percent in 2018. However, this still falls significantly below the target of 50 per cent set by the World Health Assembly to be achieved in 2025 and the SDG target for 2030”.

The UNICEF boss highlighted that the percentage of children who were breastfed within one hour of birth remained less than 50 per cent.

He submitted that in Nigeria 1 out of 8 children do not reach their 5th birthday and 3 out of 10 children are stunted and highlighted that optimal breastfeeding practices are known to reduce neonatal child morbilities and mortality rates as well as stunting reduction.

In her contribution, Dr. Ijeoma Onuoha-Ogwe, Communication Officer, UNICEF, Enugu gave the objectives of the conference to include identifying strategies and modalities and framework for the implementation of exclusive breastfeeding.

In a paper on “overview of breastfeeding initiative in Nigeria and prospects’, the UNICEF Nutrition Manager, Dr. Hanifa Namusoke revealed that breast milk is not dependent on the size of the breast, but on the emotion of the mother.

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