The Federal Government says it is dedicated to improving child nutrition indices in Nigeria by increasing the capacity of healthcare personnel at both the federal and grassroots level.
Project Coordinator of the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria project, Khadijat Alarape, announced this in Ibadan at the end of a capacity development for health workers in Oyo state.
The Federal Government says it is dedicated to ensuring good indices of child nutrition in Nigeria by improving the skills of healthcare workers at both the federal and grassroots levels in the country.
The Maternal Infant Young Child Nutrition initiative, launched by the Federal Government, aims to mitigate the impact of malnutrition on children.
Approximately 6 million children under five in Nigeria, representing 37%, suffer from stunting, a sign of chronic malnutrition.
To address this issue, the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Health, has concluded a capacity-building program for 684 grassroots health workers in Oyo State.
One major cause of child malnutrition is poor breastfeeding practices. In Nigeria, only 17% of mothers exclusively breastfeed their children for six months.
To combat this, program participants got training in teaching nursing moms about the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding in lowering child death rates.
The effort, funded by the World Bank’s Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria project, seeks to improve maternal nutrition and encourage the adoption of optimum newborn and young child feeding practices in Nigeria.
