The Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug
Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Dr. Paul Orhii , saturday said that
over 194,000 Nigerian children under the age of five die yearly from
diarrhoea.
Orhii made the disclosure in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, while delivering a paper titled, An Overview of the International/National Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, at a ceremony organised to mark the 2013 World Breastfeeding Day in the state.
He warned that the alarming figure is a wake-up call to Nigerian mothers to ensure that their babies were properly breast fed in their formative years in order to avert avoidable deaths among children in the country.
Orhii attributed the figure to a report recently released by the United Nations Children Education Fund, UNICEF. "And since this can be averted when children are properly breastfeed for two years, because it helps them develop immunity against such diseases, it becomes even more imperative and I urge mothers to ensure that their babies are breastfed properly," the NAFDAC boss said.
According to him, " it has been scientifically proven that there is nothing that equals breastfeeding in proper nourishment for infants," adding "Breast milk has the additional advantage of containing antibodies that protect the baby against many common childhood illnesses."
Orhii stated further: "It is always in the right temperature, costs nothing and nearly every mother has more than enough for her baby; it also protects the mother's health by preventing bleeding and enables the uterus to return to normal size after delivery and prevents health and breast cancer."
In her speech at the occasion, the wife of the Benue State Governor, Mrs. Yemisi Suswam, who was represented by the Managing Director of the Lower Benue River Basin Development Authority, Mrs. Ada Chenge, enjoined mothers to take the issue of breastfeeding as a priority in order to safeguard the health of their children, mothers and the state in general.
Orhii made the disclosure in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, while delivering a paper titled, An Overview of the International/National Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, at a ceremony organised to mark the 2013 World Breastfeeding Day in the state.
He warned that the alarming figure is a wake-up call to Nigerian mothers to ensure that their babies were properly breast fed in their formative years in order to avert avoidable deaths among children in the country.
Orhii attributed the figure to a report recently released by the United Nations Children Education Fund, UNICEF. "And since this can be averted when children are properly breastfeed for two years, because it helps them develop immunity against such diseases, it becomes even more imperative and I urge mothers to ensure that their babies are breastfed properly," the NAFDAC boss said.
According to him, " it has been scientifically proven that there is nothing that equals breastfeeding in proper nourishment for infants," adding "Breast milk has the additional advantage of containing antibodies that protect the baby against many common childhood illnesses."
Orhii stated further: "It is always in the right temperature, costs nothing and nearly every mother has more than enough for her baby; it also protects the mother's health by preventing bleeding and enables the uterus to return to normal size after delivery and prevents health and breast cancer."
In her speech at the occasion, the wife of the Benue State Governor, Mrs. Yemisi Suswam, who was represented by the Managing Director of the Lower Benue River Basin Development Authority, Mrs. Ada Chenge, enjoined mothers to take the issue of breastfeeding as a priority in order to safeguard the health of their children, mothers and the state in general.
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