WBFA engages medical directors to increase awareness
To ensure the physical wellbeing and mental development of every child born in Lagos State, mothers have been urged to key into exclusive breastfeeding and make sure that their babies get the full benefits of the practice.
Citing the various health benefits of exclusive breasfeeding, beginning with early initiation of their babies to breast milk within an hour of birth, experts say exclusive breastfeeding remains the best investment a mother could make in her child.
According to them, ensuring early initiation of babies to breastmilk within an hour of birth; improving exclusive breastfeeding and dietary diversity after six months of exclusive breastfeeding are crucial in child survival and development, apart from enhancing Infant and Young Child Feeding practices.
Researches have shown that breast milk is perfectly suited to nourish infants and protect them from illness.
Speaking at an IYCF sensitisation programme, organised by the Wellbeing Foundation Africa for private medical directors in Lagos State recently, one of the experts and Founder/ President of the Foundation, Mrs. Toyin Saraki, said private sector support and participation were required to get the desired result by passing the message to mothers who patronise their facilities.
The sensitisation programme was aimed at promoting the FHI360 Alive & Thrive project, an initiative sponsored by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to save lives, prevent illness and ensure healthy growth and development through the promotion and support of optimal maternal nutrition, breastfeeding practices in rural and urban Lagos as well as Kaduna State.
Calling for a behavioural change among mothers, Saraki told the medical directors, drawn from over 500 private facilities in the state, that they could do a lot to improve the health indices of women and children in the state, especially by making sure that women who delivered in their facilities put their babies to breast within an hour of birth and by practising exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of life.
She said, “Here in Lagos, there is much for us to accomplish. Malnutrition accounts for more than 50 per cent of under-five mortality with a rate of timely breastfeeding initiation at only 28.9 per cent. A mere 19.7 per cent of children, six months and under, in the state, are exclusively breastfed and only 10 per cent of children aged six to 23 months are fed appropriately. The reality of those statistics is distressing: 47 per cent of children in Lagos under-five are stunted while 34 per cent are under-weight.”
To reverse the trend, the WBFA Founder, who is also the wife of the Senate President, revealed that if 90 per cent of mothers exclusively breastfed their infants for the six months of life, an estimated 13 per cent of child deaths could be averted.
“If the same proportion of mothers provided adequate and timely complimentary feeding for their infants, from six to 24 months, a further six per cent of child deaths could be avoided. That is the impact that, in partnership, we can have for the women, babies and infants of Lagos State, and a goal which I know will motivate us all,” she said.
Saraki appealed to the medical directors to make the project a success, stressing that the WBFA was the key implementing partner currently working with 500 private health facilities across 10 local government areas in Lagos State by providing advocacy, capacity building and health promotion in the area of IYCF practices.
In his remarks, the state Commissioner for Health, represented by the state Nutrition Officer, Mrs Olubunmi Ibrahim, said there was a need for private sector participation and partnership if meaningful achievement was to be made in the health sector. She urged them to further encourage nursing mothers by providing them the enabling environment to breastfeed their babies by making crèches available to them in their various organisations.
On his part, the Chairman, Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria, Lagos State Chapter, Dr Tunji Akintade, urged members of his association to pass the message to women who visit their facilities, as well as at the grass root level, so that the Nigerian healthcare system could witness a paradigm shift.
Also speaking, state Team Lead, FHI 360 Alive & Thrive Project, Dr. Uche Ralph-Opara, assured that the project would boost child survival in the state.
