The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has warned mothers, parents and families against artificial feeding.
According to the global body, it’s injurious with so many health risks to the growth and survival of the child.
It, therefore, called on them to embrace exclusive breast feeding “which is vital to a more sustainable world as the only way out to guarantee the safety and survival of a child in his first six months.”
Speaking at a media dialogue in Azare, Bauchi state, to mark this year’s World Breast-feeding Week, with the theme “Enabling breast-feeding: Making a Difference for Working Parents,” which were drawn journalists, partners, and stakeholders from the North-east states of Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi, and Gombe as well as Plateau and the FCT, UNICEF’s nutrition specialist, Philomena Irene, charged parents to embrace exclusive breast-feeding.
According to the expert, it contains all the ideal nutrients for infant growth and the antibodies that help a baby to fight viruses, bacteria and all forms of infections including childhood obesity, diabetes and increases their intelligence among many other benefits.
She noted that breast-fed children have at least six times greater chances of survival in the early months than un-breast-fed children, stressing that “exclusive breast-fed children are 14 times less likely to die in the first six months than those not breast-fed.”
She added that 13 per cent of child deaths could be averted if 90 per cent of mothers exclusively breast-feed their infants for the first six months of life.
Also speaking, the chief UNICEF officer, Bauchi Field Office, Dr. Tusher Rane, said the breast-feeding week “is celebrated every year to bring the attention of stakeholders to the importance of breast-feeding for a child, mothers and the socio-economic development of society.”
