Mrs Okorocha Canvasses Exclusive Breastfeeding

The wife of Imo Governor, Mrs Nkechi Okorocha, has said that strict adherence by mothers to exclusive breastfeeding will boost the attainment of Millennium Development Goal four target.

Okorocha gave the advice in Owerri in an address at the grand finale of Imo 2012 World Breastfeeding Week celebration.

The theme of the celebration was “Understanding the Past, Planning for the Future: Celebrating 10 years of WHO/UNICEF’s Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding”.

She said that strict adherence to the practice would reduce by two thirds the under-five child mortality rate by 2015.

She said it was the sole responsibility of mothers to breastfeed their babies exclusively from birth till six months and continually till they were two years old.

Okorocha said that the theme called for deep reflection on the quality of care mothers gave their babies with respect to their nutrition.

She identified some benefits of breastfeeding to include bonding, disease prevention and high intelligence quotient.

In her address, the Commissioner for Health, Dr Joe Njoku, explained that the World Breastfeeding Week was launched 20 years ago by World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), a body concerned with the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding worldwide.

He said the theme focused on the progress made on the implementation of the global strategy for infant and young child feeding.

He said the strategy was jointly developed and launched to revitalise world attention to the impact that feeding practices had on the nutritional status, development, health and survival of infants and young children.

UNICEF Nutrition Consultant, Mr Andrew Offor, said the essence of the week was to enable mothers and policy makers to know the importance of breastfeeding.

He attributed most infant deaths to poor nutrition and poor breastfeeding and corrected some of the misconceptions about breastfeeding.

Offor said that WHO and UNICEF had carried out some interventions to reduce infant mortality and called on the government to formulate and enforce laws that would aid children and youngsters’ feeding arrangement.