Ensure Exclusive Breastfeeding On Your New Born Babies, UNICEF Tells Fathers, Grand Parents

Ensure Exclusive breastfeeding on your new born babies. UNICEF tells Fathers, Grand parents.

From Umar Dankano, Yola.

This year’s (2024) world Exclusive breastfeeding day celebration was marked with a major difference as the United Nations Children’s Education Fund, UNICEF advocated for fathers and grand mothers to take the lead in ensuring mothers adopt the six months exclusive breastfeeding to their newborn babies.

Exclusive breastfeeding practice is a method of feeding infants with only breast milk from birth to the age of six months before other complimentary feeding can be introduced which have been scientifically proven to be a major source of infants healthy growth and  well being.

Worried with the poor compliance a by nursing mothers to ensure exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of newborn babies in the North East zone, Unicef Bauchi field office had a two day media engagement in Yola, Adamawa state capital on the 14th and 15th August adopting journalists in the zone as potential drivers in achieving the feat.

Available Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey’s (MICS) data for 2021 has revealed that, exclusive breastfeeding recorded very low performance despite expended investment by Unicef indicating that,Adamawa State recorded  53.3 percent acceptability followed by Plateau State with 38.6 percent, while Taraba recorded 33.7 percent just as Gombe and Bauchi states recorded 30.7 and 26.4 percents respectively.

In an effort to change the narrative for a  success of the new method, the  UNICEF engaged the support of critical stakeholders including, journalists, religious and traditional leaders for a brain storming sessions tagged”Beyond Mothers: Analysing the role of fathers and family members in promoting exclusive breastfeeding for child survival”.

UNICEF’s Nutrition Specialist, Philomena Irene, explained that,fathers or husbands as bread winners in the home front, have a critical role to play in ensuring mothers exclusively breastfeed their infant babies based on cultural and traditional believes that,fathers have the final say in a family.

Irene tasked journalists, as agents of change, to see themselves as the nutrition specialists, who can change the perception of those who are not practicing exclusive breastfeeding to embrace the practice and further become the advocates of exclusive breastfeeding.

“This time around, we want to do a follow-up on the fathers, influencers, grandmothers, who are the decision makers in the home, rather than focusing only on the women in regards to breast feeding.

“More than 80 percent of mothers do not practice exclusive breastfeeding in the Northeast states and this is very disheartening. These are not indices that should make one happy.

“The question is what can we do as change agents to turn the narratives. This time around, we want to focus on the gender and expect a different result. We must write inspirational stories, we must write with evidence that is true with the practice of exclusive breastfeeding.

“Now, you are the nutrition specialist and are engaging men to make a difference.You need to tell them the benefits of breastfeeding, know their perceptions about it and progressively create a change in their minds about the practice,” she pointed out.

During a field work outing in Fufore local government council in the state, Mallam Mohammad Aliyu Fufore, a 64 year old husband of four wives and twenty three(23) children said initially he was opposed to the practice of exclusive breastfeeding based on cultural belief which gives nursing mothers the ground to administer drinking water and breast milk to their babies right from birth.

Mallam Fufore confessed that out of his 23 children, only three (3) were nursed with exclusive breastfeeding affirming that they were more healthier than the other 20 remaining due to the awareness being given by health care workers and the traditional leaders in the area.

Fufore added that, he is among the volunteers being oriented by the primary Health Care Centre in the council who down the useful information to