The United Nations Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF), has reiterated its commitment to continuous collaboration with the Niger State government to protect, promote and support breastfeeding and its activities in the state.
Mrs Chinwe Ezeife, Nutrition Specialist, UNICEF Kaduna Field Office, Mrs Chinwe Ezeife stated this at a symposium to commemorate the World Breastfeeding Week, tagged; Step Up Breastfeeding Educate and Support, last Thursday in Minna, the state capital.
She explained that UNICEF had supported the state on maternal infant and young child feeding practices in communities and exclusive breastfeeding for six months.
“After six months of exclusive breastfeeding, the mother will introduce appropriate complementary food for the child and still breastfeed the child for 24 months and beyond and this support is ongoing in 14 local government areas.
“We have trained community volunteers who have been doing house to house to explain these practices to them,” she said.
Ezeife noted that UNICEF in collaboration with National Orientation Agency (NOA) and the state Primary HealthCare Development Agency would embark on community dialogue with traditional and religious leaders on their roles to support women to breastfeed.
She added that the organisation would partner with the state primary healthcare development agency to improve the capacity of health workers on how they can support mothers to embrace breastfeeding.
Earlier in her presentation on the importance of breastfeeding, a Pediatrician at the Minna General Hospital, Dr Aisha Musa urged nursing mothers not to deny their babies from sucking the first breast milk immediately after they delivered the baby.
Musa explained that the first breast milk known as “colostrum, which is yellowish in colour should be fed to a baby as it has the nutrient concentration a child needs and should not be thrown away as it was being practised in communities.
She added that mothers should also breastfeed their babies after the first breastmilk to enable the child to access fore milk and hind milk.
“Colostrum is the first yellow milk that comes out from a woman’s breast immediately after she is put to bed, this colostrum contains antibodies a child needs as a nutrient at that time, it is the first immunisation a child gets in life.
“Any child that is not given the colostrum is easily exposed to any outbreak of disease, therefore the habit of throwing away the first breast milk should be stopped in communities, ” she said.
She also harped on the importance of exclusive breastfeeding for the child’s survival and development, adding that exclusively breastfeeding protects the child from falling sick as well as improves the mother’s and child’s bonding.
In her remarks, Nutrition Officer Niger State Ministry of Health and Hospital Services, Asmai Abubakar explained that the state government had partnered with various organisations such as Accelerating Nutrition Results Result in Nigeria project to improve nutrition among women.