This newborn baby was put to his mother's breast within 30 minutes of delivery, to ensure good attachment and to make sure the baby received the colostrum. Save the Children is one of the partners of PRINNMCH, which trained Hajiya Sakina, the Midwife at this clinic, who aiso the also the Nurse in Charge of the malnutrition clinic.
Additional Information
Save the Childrens Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) programme encourages breastfeeding. This can include back massages for mothers having difficulty to stimulate milk production. In this region of north Nigeria, when mothers cant breastfeed they resort to feeding their infants fura (millet porridge), goat milk, or water and glucose. In this region, mixed feeding (breastmilk plus fura, animal milk or water and glucose) is predominant in infants, which frequently puts their babies lives at risk.
In the week that the worlds population reaches 7 billion, this baby boy becomes his mothers tenth child.
Globally, 7.5 million children still die before reaching their fifth birthday every year. Most will have lived their short lives facing a daily struggle for survival in the worlds poorest countries, where infections are frequent and many families dont have easy access to a doctor or nurse or other trained healthworker. But progress is being made. The seven billionth baby is more likely to reach the age of five than at any point in history. In 1987, when the five billionth baby was born, one in nine children never reached five years old. Today that figure is one in 16.
UNICEF has said revealed that more than five million newborns in Nigeria are deprived of essential nutrients and antibodies that protect them from disease and death as they are not being exclusively breastfed.
The United Nation Agency for Children, speaking at the event to mark the World Breastfeeding Week, on Monday, August 8, said, only 25 per cent of the approximate 7 million children born in Nigeria every year, according to the 2014 National Nutrition and Health Survey are exclusively breastfed from 0-6 months of age.
“We know that the pressure to give water to newborns in addition to breast milk is high. But the stomach of a baby is so small it can barely hold 60 millilitres of liquid and when it is filled with water, it leaves no room for breast milk and its life sustaining nutrients,” said Arjan de Wagt, UNICEF Nigeria Chief of Nutrition.
It stressed that babies who are fed nothing but breastmilk from the moment they are born until they are six months old grow and develop better.
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