World Breastfeeding Week 2021: WBFA Pledges Support for Mothers of Premature Babies
The Founder and President of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, (WBFA) Her Excellency Toyin Saraki has pledged her support to help mothers of premature and ill neonates babies to successfully lactate and breastfeed in Nigeria.
Toyin, while speaking in Abuja on Wednesday at a stakeholders workshop to mark the World Breastfeeding Week 2021 noted that Wellbeing Foundation will focus on the most vulnerable 871,000 premature babies born in Nigeria annually by providing support for their mothers to successfully breastfeed them.
According to Toyin, Nigeria has one of the highest rates of childhood malnutrition and stunting, affecting early childhood development – another aggregation of the country’s low exclusive breastfeeding rate of 17%.
She explained that Wellbeing Foundation Africa has taken the bold step since 2014 to represent Nigeria in the Global Breastfeeding Initiative’s consultations, and from that point onwards birthed an intentional and deliberate community-centred frontline strategy to provide hands-on lactation education support for newly delivered women in Nigeria – an early investment that stood the test of resilience during COVID-19, and the enabler for a strong start to building back better, whether others may have floundered.
She added that the foundation is committed to supporting Nigeria in key lactation specific upskilling for all professionally qualified birth attendants beyond establishing the mother-neonate latch within the first hour and day of birth.
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“The organisation will build and deliver an online quality improvement toolkit to enable scale up, monitoring and evaluation alongside train the trainers workshops, we are focusing on the most vulnerable – 871,000 premature babies born in Nigeria annually by providing dedicated support to help mothers of premature and ill neonates successfully lactate and breastfeed in Nigeria, and are pleased to be introducing NICU specific strategies to the Federal Ministry of Health during 2021 World Breastfeeding Week”.
Speaking further, Toyin said WBFA is committed to up-skilling the frontline, and imparting knowledge that promotes and protects mother’s nutritional status, mental wellbeing, and lifestyle choices – before and during pregnancy.
“The WBFA strengthens primary health centres in Nigeria by remaining accessible – financially and geographically, thus, promoting a Continuum of Care that empowers frontliners to transition from community carers to community interlocutors”.
Commenting on WBFA’s engagement in the national #2021WBW campaign at the FMoH Ministerial Press Briefing and Launching of one of the Nutrition Division Policy Document by the Honourable Minister of Health
“The WBFA is grateful for the opportunity to make a difference in Nigeria. The most populous sub-saharan nation. Indeed, by advocacy and programmatic actions. Through our strategic partnerships, we are able, as leaders, to pioneer, and demonstrate at scale – the impact of collaborative advocates and institutional citizens to build back a better community of practice to promote and protect the value of human milk for every woman and every child.”
The WBFA National Programme Coordinator, Dr. Wale Otun on his own part noted that babies on NCIU admission are often left out on breast milk feeding campaign as there are no national guidelines on lactation of NICU babies.
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Dr. Otun further stated that the poorly equipped facilities which are under staffed has further negatively impacted the quality of nutrition in NICUs thereby contributing to the morbidity and mortality of newborns.
While calling on stakeholders in the health sector on working another guideline on feeding of babies in Neonatal Intensive Care Units in Nigeria, Otun assured that the support by WBFA to mothers of premature and ill neonates successfully lactate and breastfeed in Nigeria will ensure adherence to the World Health Organization (WHO) International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes Code and Nigeria Breastmilk Substitutes Law.