Women in Rivers state have been urged to exclusively breastfeed their newborn babies at least six months with out water or any supplementary food.
The Permanent Secretary Rivers State Primary Health Care Management Board, Dr. Agriye Harry who stated this during a media sensitization meeting to mark the ongoing Breastfeeding Week, said 90 percent of water is contained in a mother’s breast milk.
Dr Agriye Harry who was represented by the Director of Community Health Services, Dr Isaac Opurum, stressed that breast milk is vital to every baby as it helps in developing the mental and physical well-being of the child.
“Every child that is well breastfed usually develop well, most of them are very brilliant, when we have lots of intelligent children the nation benefits. All we are saying is; support breastfeeding mothers, families need to play roles to support women who are breastfeeding, when a woman gets support from husband, mother in-law and people around her the breast milk will flow and the whole family will benefit economically”
On her part, State Nutrition Officer, Juan Awotunde, advised for the use of surrogate mother to breastfeed children, pending when the policy of having breastmilk bank will be finalized by the state.
“The breast milk from a mother is never infected in as much as the woman is healthy and produce milk for the baby as surrogate mother or if she is not breastfeeding the child, she can express the breast milk for the baby. It must not really be that the woman has given birth to be a surrogate mother, even the grandmother of the child can become a surrogate mother, that is why we are trying to have the policy of breastmilk bank which is on the way”
Our reporter Tina Amanda gathered that the Primary Health Care Board is set to sensitize women on the dangers associated with poor breastfeeding in all communities in the 23 local government areas of the state.
