Experts decry maternal infant mortality, make case for nutrition

An expert on nutrition and member of Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in Accra, Ghana, Ms Mercy Nyamikeh, has attributed the spate of maternal infant mortality to lack of access to the right information.

Nyamikeh noted this while presenting a paper at the just concluded Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference, titled “Scaling up behavioral change communication for desirable nutrition outcome”, saying the internet is one of the tools Africans are underusing in information gathering.

She said everybody should have the right to information, as there are certain people one can talk to and get the right source of information, adding that an infant is a young child of 0-2 years and that “this age is critical”.

She said: “Whatever malnutrition or health consequences that the child suffers is irreversible. Those consequences follows a child through life. We all need to give our child the best and also find out information about the child.

“What one needs to do as a mother is by doing the right thing. Give feeding requirements, gather knowledge and find the best set of information and use them.”

Speaking earlier, President of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria (NSN), Bartholomew Brai, called on stakeholders in nutrition to support the  great initiative aimed at changing the undesirable nutrition narrative in the country.

He also called on the urgent need for capacity building amongst members of NSN to tackle the scourge of malnutrition in the various states of the country.

Leave a Reply