How to tackle babies’ malnourishment

• Dr Esangbedo

Many babies are malnourished. This condition affects their growth. Experts, think mothers need more education on how to breast feed their babies. WALE ADEPOJU writes
Baby Saratu Yakubu (not real name) was born underweight. Her massive head sitting on her tiny neck showed that she was suffering from malnourishment.

The story of little Yerima Hamzat is similar to that of Baby Yakubu. He, too, was born tiny. His frail body drew the attention to him at the Emergency Ward of Abuja General Hospital. His mother had rushed him to the hospital when he collapsed.

His mother is a peasant farmer, who manages to eke a living from her trade.

As a result, she needed money to pay for her son’s treatment.

The doctor said the problems arose because the babies’mothers did not eat good food during their pregnancies.

Their poor dietary habits may also have a negative effect on the babies’ intelligence quotient (IQ) because their brain development rests with the mothers’ dietary food intake.

Head, Community Health Department, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Dr Yetunde Kuyinu, said the nutrition of every child begins from the womb.

A poorly-fed foetus may have difficulty developing like those of well-fed mothers when it is born, she added.

This the scenario many babies find themselves in Nigeria.

Malnourishment is a common problem many babies grapple with, especially those from poor and uneducated parents. This is why they are worse hit.

They suffer from the condition, not because there is nothing to feed them with, but because their mothers are ignorant of what a proper feeding habit/practice should be.

According to the 2013 National Demographic Health Survey (NDHS), 37 per cent of children under-five are stunted or too short for their age. This indicates chronic malnutrition. Stunting is most common among children of less educated mothers (50 per cent) and those from the poorest households (54 per cent). Stunting is more common in rural areas (43 per cent) than urban areas (26 per cent).

Eighteen percent of children under age five in Nigeria are wasted (too thin for height), which is a sign of acute malnutrition. In addition, 29 per cent of Nigerian children are underweight or too thin for their age.

The WHO recommends that children receive nothing but breast-milk (exclusive breastfeeding) for the first six months of life. Only 17 per cent of children under-six-month in Nigeria are being exclusively breastfed. On the average, children between zero and 35 months are breastfeed until the age of one and a half years and are exclusively breastfed for 0.5 months.

Complementary foods should be introduced when a child is six months old to reduce the risk of malnutrition. In Nigeria, two-thirds of children between six and nine months are breastfed and eat complementary.

The Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices recommend that breastfed children age between six and 23 months be fed foods from four or more food groups daily.

Non-breastfed children should be fed with milk or milk products, in addition to foods from four or more food groups. IYCF also recommends that children be fed a minimum number of times per day. However, only 11 per cent of breastfed children in Nigeria are receiving foods from four or more food groups daily and receiving the minimum number of meals and just seven per cent of non breastfed children are being fed in accordance with IYCF recommendations.

Most parents, however, tend to connect their babies nutritional status to poverty because they could barely make ends meet.

But, this was dismissed by President, Nutrition Society of Nigeria (NSN), Prof Ngozi Nnam, who said the problem was not because of poverty but lack of education.

There is great need for adequate nutrition in pregnancy and after childbirth, she said.

According to her, breastfeeding mothers must give their babies adequate nutrition for the first 1000 days of life to enhance brain development.

This, she said, is important because: “that is when the brain is formed and it completes its formation by the second birthday.

She continued: “And, if any nutrient is deficient during these first two years of life, the role of that nutrient will not be performed. There will be insults in the brain formation, that is, you will have gaps. Some of the cells might not develop well.

“And the worrisome aspect of it is that, it is irreversible, and the child lives with that malformed brain. That child will never do well in school or in any skill because brain controls whatever we do. The important thing is that, for these first two years of life, children should be given foods that are nutritionally adequate to provide all the nutrients required for proper development of that child, particularly proper development of the brain.”

Mothers’nutrition status, she said, may make or mar babies’ development, stressing that malnutrition is not caused by poverty but ignorance.

“Lack of education is the major reason many babies are malnourished,” she said.

Nnam lamented that some people erroneously think that eating expensive delicacies would stop malnutrition, adding: “Malnutrition remains high because of ignorance.”

She said: “For example, poor people, who live in rural areas, have access to fresh food, fruits and vegetables in their environment but they would not cook them for their family. They would rather sell them, not minding that they also need nutritious food.”

Nutrition, she said, is the bedrock of development, adding for an individual to develop well he or she needs to be in good nutritional standing.

President, Union of National African Paediatric Societies and Associations (UNAPSA), Dr Dorothy Esangbedo, said the nutrition of children remains a major challenge with the decline of exclusive breastfeeding in babies below six months in Nigeria to 13 per cent and 23 per cent of children under-five are severely stunted as revealed in the 2008 NDHS.

The improvement of nutrition, she said, would boost the immunity of children to withstand malaria and other diseases.

Esangbedo urged mothers to maintain exclusive breast feeding, adding that Nigeria is still on less than 20 per cent which is a far cry of the world standard of 35 per cent.

She said some countries in sub-Saharan Africa are already doing better than Nigeria.

This, she said, made Nigeria had the worst health indices in the world as the country contributes 10 per cent of 8.1 million world infant mortality of children, which die across the world yearly