By Victor Adeoti
Ibadan – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says the percentage of mothers in South-west and Edo engaging in exclusive breastfeeding for their infants under six months has improved over the years.
Dr Niyi Olaleye, UNICEF Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist disclosed this at the beginning of a two-day workshop on data-driven reports for journalists on Thursday in Ibadan.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop was organised by UNICEF’s Lagos field office in collaboration with the National Orientation Agency (NOA), Lagos State.
Olaleye said that exclusive breastfeeding by mothers in the region in 2016 and 2017 was 43.9 per cent as against 17.1 per cent in 2007.
He said that Osun had the highest percentage of exclusive breastfeeding rate of 55.3 per cent in 2017 followed by Lagos State with 51.8 per cent.
Olaleye said that Ogun and Ondo States had the lowest percentages of exclusive breast feeding.
He said in Ogun, the percentage of exclusive breastfeeding rate was 23.1 per cent in 2007, 13.6 per cent in 2011 and 20.9 per cent in 2016 and 2017.
However, Ondo State recorded 14.3 per cent of exclusive breastfeeding rate in 2007, 8.6 per cent in 2011 and 23.5 per cent for 2016 and 2017.
According to him, the statistics is based on Multiple Indicators Cluster (MIC) survey.
According to him, MIC is an international household survey on a wide range of indicators on situation of children and women.
He added that UNICEF had been consistent in partnering the National Bureau of Statistics to implement MIC’s survey since 1995.
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