A concerned group, Royal Ladies Association of Port Harcourt (RLA), has said that appropriate feeding practices for children was still lacking among Nigerians, thus bringing about the prevalence of malnutrition in Nigeria.
The organisation’s President, Mrs. Franca Ikechukwu, who made this known in a chat with The Tide in Port Harcourt, yesterday, on malnutrition and Nigerian children, spoke against the backdrop of this year’s International Children’s Day of Broadcasting, marked  on March 3rd,  with the theme: “End Malnutrition: Protect the Future of the Nigerian Child.”
According to her, research identifies cultural beliefs of giving children other foods, especially water, during the first six months of life, which negates exclusive breastfeeding of infants, as gaps in addressing malnutrition.
As she puts it, “malnutrition is becoming endemic in Nigeria, it accounted for more than 50 per cent of under-five mortality in Nigeria, with the infant mortality as high as one hundred and three per one thousand live births.”
The group leader stressed that, although, Nigeria is often seen to be blessed with various foods across the regions, it has become clear that appropriate feeding pattern for children is lacking among its people.
She asserts: “Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time. Breastmilk is important to the proper growth and development of infants as it contains the nutrients and antibodies needed by infants to grow strong and healthy.”
She argued that local culture, religious beliefs and unethical medical practices have bedeviled the effective breastfeeding of children over the past decades, stressing that this is resulting in higher rates of  under-nutrition, stunted growth and underweight in children across the nation.

Bethel Toby