As Nigeria joined the rest of the world to mark the World Breastfeeding Week (August 1-7), the nation’s slow progress in the practice of exclusive breastfeeding came into sharp focus.
In the past, Nigerian mothers took pride in breastfeeding their children for as long as necessary and the country’s exclusive breastfeeding rates were among the highest in the world. But this is no longer the practice. Today, breastfeeding rates in Nigeria are amongst the lowest in the world and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recently remarked that Nigeria is making slow progress in exclusive breastfeeding.
The global body noted that currently, more than five million newborns in the country are deprived essential nutrients and antibodies that protect them from diseases and death because they are not being exclusively breastfed. Babies who are exclusively breastfed for the first six months grow and develop better than babies who are deprived.
Data from the 2014 National Nutrition and Health Survey shows that of the seven million children born in Nigeria every year, less than 25 per cent are exclusively breastfed from 0-6 months of age. Although the nation’s breastfeeding rate increased from 12 per cent to 25 per cent within a decade, lack of progress in exclusive breastfeeding practices continue to deny millions of newborns and infants aged below six months the benefits of breast milk. In 1994, both Ghana and Nigeria had exclusive breastfeeding rates of 7.4 percent, but by 2013 Ghana had moved up to 63 per cent. Nigeria is currently at an unacceptably low 17 per cent.
Several years ago, the Federal Government established the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) with the aim of providing mothers and their infants a supportive environment. But interest in the venture has considerably waned to the point that the nation’s current breastfeeding rate has fallen below the WHO/UNICEF recommendation of 90 percent exclusive breastfeeding in children aged less than six months.
The way forward for Nigeria is to critically enhance the exclusive breastfeeding component of the National Food and Nutrition policy 2014- 2019. Exclusive breastfeeding should be the first strategy in fighting child malnutrition and must be recognised as a strong component of the nation’s child survival initiative.
The goal of the National Strategic plan of Action for Nutrition which calls for at least 50 per cent exclusive breastfeeding rate by 2018 should also be in focus. It is hoped that Nigeria will make concerted efforts to heed the Abuja Breastfeeding Declaration to protect, support and promote breastfeeding for the nation’s national development. Nigeria must also actively participate in the World Health Organization and UNICEF global Breastfeeding Advocacy Initiative to ensure that exclusive breastfeeding promotion programmes target all mothers.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/08/nigerias-slow-drive-in-exclusive-breastfeeding/
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