By Raphael Enwelu
Awka – Nursing mothers across the country have been advised to embrace breastfeeding of their babies for its importance to growth of children.
Some residents of Awka in Anambra made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Awka, as the world commemorates 2020 World Breastfeeding Week.
Dr Obiora Onwurah, a medical doctor in Awka, called for nursing mothers to see the future benefit other than their instant feelings.
“The child that exclusively breastfed for at least six months has all the potential to grow healthier and stronger than the one that was exclusively fed with baby milk.
“Breastfed babies don’t get sick unnecessarily compared to those that were fed with baby milk.
Also, breastfed babies tend to have sharper brains and stronger bones than those that were not,” he said.
On her part, Mrs Ngozi Nwobu, a grandmother, blamed western civilization as the cause of young mothers not wanting to use exclusive breastfeeding on their children.
“I don’t know who told them that their breast will shrink when they engage in exclusive breastfeeding of their child.
“It is a lie, for it takes the way you handle your body to either have a robust or shrink breast and not what the child sucked,” she said.
Nwobu advised mothers not to see breastfeeding as obsolete as no amount of innovation in manufactured baby cereals could surpass breast milk.
Mrs Felicia Abazu, a civil servant, said that she would never allow her daughter to engage in other forms of feeding newly born child other than breastfeeding.
“I can tell you that there is no substitute to breastfeeding a newly born child until he or she gets to two years a least.
“For my daughter that is now pregnant, I have told her the importance of breastfeeding a child for the child to have a strong immune system,” she said.
(NAN)
