NaijaAgroNet:
Nigerians have been urged to prioritize the first 1000 days of life of a child, reports NaijaAgroNet.
The participants made this call at the three-day Media Training at Consort Luxury Suites, Abuja, on the theme, “The Journalists’ Role in Ensuring Transparency and Accountability in Allocation and Use of Health and Nutrition Funds in Nigeria.”
The event organized by the Civil Society Scaling up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) under the Partnership for Improving Nigeria Nutrition Systems (PINNS) project, saw to building of capacity of media practitioners to develop stories and programmes focusing on transparency and accountability in allocation and use of health cum nutrition funds in focal states and the country at large.
The training was also organized to engender passion and commitment to reporting health and nutrition issues through site visited to Kwali Primary Health Care (PHC) Centre for firsthand experience of the challenges in the sector among other important issues.
Rising from the workshop, participants in a communique made available to NaijaAgroNet noted the importance of Nigerians prioritizing the first 1000 (one thousand) days of life of a child, saying it’s very crucial to the survival and ability of such child to live beyond five years.
For this, participants urged most Nigerian mothers at the Public Health Care (PHC) centres, have been found not practicing Exclusive Breast Feeding (EBF), at least in the first 1000 days of a child.
They also urged Nigerian media to sensitize women more on the need to exclusively breastfeed their children in the first six months of life, without addition of water.
“Media should also sensitize women to continue to breastfeed their children for two years in addition to adequate complementary feeding,” the communique stated, just as they called on husband to get involved on how their children are handled especially in matters regarding Exclusive Breast Feeding for the first 1000 days of infants.
NaijaAgroNet recalls
that breast milk provides the ideal nutrition for infants
and lowers baby's risk of having asthma or allergies, just as experts have
often said that babies breastfed exclusively for
the first 6 months, without any formula, have fewer ear infections, respiratory
illnesses, and bouts of diarrhea.
“Where budgets are allocated and released, they focus more on the curative measures than preventive measures,” part of the communique read.
Chuks Egbune/GEE
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