Commissioner Lists Benefits Of Exclusive Breastfeeding

The Enugu State Commissioner for Gender Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Ndidi Chukwu, has called on mothers to insist on exclusive breastfeeding of their babies for the first six months.

In an interview in Enugu last Thursday, Chukwu said exclusive breastfeeding helped to promote good relationship between a mother and her child.

She also said that exclusive breastfeeding helps to build children’s immunity to protect them from sickness.

The commissioner advised unemployed mothers to engage themselves with something to earn a living to enable them to breastfeed their children.

She advised the mothers to always attend free maternal and new born health education, free immunisation, sharing of long lasting insecticide treated nets and other activities that concerned children in the state.

Chukwu explained that the country recorded 157 child deaths out of every 1,000 births in 2011, a figure she said was unacceptable to the state government.

Also speaking a nursing mother, Mrs Miriam Ekpelibe, confirmed that exclusive breastfeeding guarantees the immunity of a child, but noted that it was cumbersome for working mothers.

Ekpelibe suggested an increase in maternity leave for working mothers from three months to six months to make greater impact on their babies.

Another respondent, Mrs Ndidi Okenwa, a mother of four, said that she could not do exclusive breastfeeding for her male child because he demanded for it regularly, causing her to eat too much and lose her shape.