THE United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) has said that the available finding has shown that mothers positive for COVID-19 can still breastfeed their babies without infecting them.
The UNICEF Nutrition Team led by Olaniyi Oyedokun said this while presenting a paper at the 2021 World Breastfeeding week in Kano.
Oyedokun disclosed that mothers with COVID-19 cannot transmit the diseases to their children while breastfeeding.
He said, “COVID-19 active virus has not been detected in any breastmilk of a mother, which simply means the mother can breastfeed even if she is actively infected.”
According to him, what a mother needs is to take precautionary measures of wearing a clinical mask, use gloves and reduce excessive body contact with the child.
However, the organisation is worried that in Kano, exclusive breastfeeding is only 18 per cent. This is coupled with environmental challenges resulting in a high rate of child mortality and malnutrition.
Speaking on the occasion, the UNICEF Field Officer in Kano, Mr Micheal Banda, urged communities that are ravaged by war and other forms of insecurity to create volunteer breastfeeding groups for abandoned children so as to reduce incidents of child mortality and child malnutrition.
Mr Banda said children that are exclusively breastfed for two years have a 19 per cent chance of survival, adding that if a child is put to breastfeeding within one hour of his birth it reduces malnutrition and child mortality cases as they are protected from infections.
He said exclusive breastfeeding from zero to six months and six to 24 months protects children from stunting and reduces possible defects in the IQ of a child and brightens his liveliness.
He further disclosed that “Exclusive breastfeeding from birth to six months and beyond contributes 30 per cent of child survival indices and reduces child mortality by 13 per cent.”
The UNICEF officer-in-charge of the Kano field office, Michael Banda, said the theme of this year’s event is “a shared responsibility to support breastfeeding and promote zero water campaign” was in line with the sensitisation campaign on the importance of breastfeeding in order to have a healthy people in 2030.
In his paper presentation, a dietist and deputy director at the state primary health care Management board, Murtala Inuwa, said the event was organised globally every 1st to 7th of August by the United Nations since 1990.
He said exclusive breastfeeding that is from zero hour to six months contains 100 per cent of what a child needs for nutrition.
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