Amby Uneze in Owerri
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has stressed the need to promote breastfeeding in the country in order to guarantee survival and growth of children.
UNICEF’s Chief of Field Office, Enugu, Dr. Ibrahim Conteh made this admonition while presenting an address yesterday at a Zonal media dialogue held in Enugu on the commemoration of 2021 World Breastfeeding week organised by UNICEF in collaboration with the Broadcasting Corporation of Abia State (BCA).
The zonal meeting attracted Journalists from the eight states, including Abia, Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Cross River, Enugu, Kogi and Imo.
According to him, the first and the most essential nutrition in life is breastfeeding and mothers must as a matter of urgency continue to play this pivotal role for continuous recreation of society.
The UNICEF boss highlighted that, “If we get exclusive breastfeeding right, other things will fall in line as regards the nutrition of the survival of the child”, adding that there was no product that was comparable with breast milk.
Conteh stressed that the responsibility of ensuring compliance to the advocacy for exclusive breastfeeding in all communities was for families and stakeholders, including the media to act as better town criers for information dissemination.
He, however, added that government should devise a means of giving some incentives, such as tax holiday to private companies for the promotion of exclusive Breastfeeding to enable mothers go on six months maternity leave.
In her contribution, Dr. Ijeoma Onuoha-Ogwe, Communication Officer, UNICEF, Enugu,gave the objectives of the dialogue to include identifying media networks, engagement and equipping journalists from the Enugu Field Office with more knowledge of exclusive breastfeeding.
She said the other major objectives of the meeting were for journalists to develop action plans to pitch stories that would motivate communities to support exclusive breastfeeding.
In a paper on “overview of breastfeeding initiative in Nigeria and prospects’, the UNICEF Nutrition Manager, Dr. Hanifa Namusoke, observed that breast milk was not dependent on the size of the breast but on the emotion of the mother.
Commissioner for Gender and Social Development Affairs, Enugu State, Peace Nnaji,revealed that nothing was preferable to the health of the child and urged mothers to ensure exclusive breastfeeding of their children as they were the engine room of the society.
