Anambra to build crèche in all government offices… 

The Anambra State government has set machinery in motion to establish crèche in all government offices as a way to encourage exclusive breastfeeding in the state.

Anambra State is said to have achieved only about 20 percent of exclusive breastfeeding, a situation attributed to the fact that most nursing mothers in the state belong to the working class cadre.

Executive Secretary of the Anambra State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Mrs Chisom Uchem said at a one day workshop for heads of Primary Healthcare Centers in the 21 local government areas of the state in Awka, that the proposed facility would also help mothers and their babies during the mandatory six months exclusive breastfeeding.

The workshop was organized by the agency in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF.

The Executive Secretary said: “The idea is to make breastfeeding work in work places. There are enablers to make it work. For instance, there is need for government to have crèche in all the government facilities.

“What this means is that anywhere a breastfeeding mother is working, there should be a conducive environment for her to keep the baby and breastfeed such baby on demand. We don’t want to have mothers complaining that the reason they are not breastfeeding their babies is because they have to work or that they want to absent themselves from work to be able to breastfeed their babies.

“When we talk about exclusive breastfeeding, we are also talking about zero water because God has packaged the breast food for nine months for the baby in the mother’s womb and this food has enough water for the child for the first six months of birth.

She said the state government is also planning to enact a law on exclusive breastfeeding so that mothers who default could be penalized.

The Director of Disease Control and Immunisation (DDCI), Anambra State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Placid Uliagbafusi, called for compliance to the Marketing Breast Milk Substitutes (BMS) Code in the country.

In a lecture, Uliagbafusi said there is need for a law to regulate the sale of baby formula in the country as the uncontrolled sale has been found to be a drawback to exclusive breastfeeding.

According to him, if such laws were made and enforced, the level of exclusive breastfeeding will surely rise in the country.

He urged  relevant authorities to aggressively address the unpleasant situation through interventions, including effective sensitisation of all stakeholders.