By Hassan Zaggi
The first 1000 days of a child- that is from conception to its second birthday are critical to the child’ development, a Nutrition Officer working with the United Nation Children’ Fund (UNICEF), Nkeiru Enwelum, has said.
She made the disclosure at a two-media dialogue organized by the Child’ Rights Information Bureau (CRIB) of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture in partnership with UNICEF, in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, yesterday.
This period, according to her, is the window for the proper development of the child’ body, brain and immune system.
The child’ growth pattern and general brain performance in later part of the child’ life, she explained, is determined by how the child was properly fed during the first 1000 days.
She, however, lamented that many children in Nigeria are currently malnourished, which she argued, if urgent action is not taken will affect their lives in the future.
Nigeria, she noted, is currently ranked first in Africa and second globally in terms of the number of malnourished children.
While enumerating the different types of child malnutrition, the expert said that 12 million Nigerian children are stunted, 3 million are wasted and that 23.5 children in the country suffer from Anaemia.
While calling on the governments at all levels to improve funding for child nutrition, the expert, regretted currently, 17.7 million people in the country are hungry, “ of which one million people suffer from acute food insecurity.”
Speaking earlier, the UNICEF Communication Specialists, Geofry Njoku, said that the aim of the dialogue is to xray the current child malnutrition situation in the country; the successes recorded over the years and the present challenges.
Other aims of the media dialogue, he further explained is to identify the current available gaps in the fight against child malnutrition and to explore ways the government can improve funding to tackle the child malnutrition situation in the country.
Media representatives from different parts of the country attended the dialogue.
