A few kilometres outside of the state capital of Maiduguri is Dalori camp, the largest internally displaced persons’ camp in Nigeria’s north-eastern state of Borno. Thirty thousand people traumatised by Boko Haram are now living in donated tents, each day trying to forget the horrible experiences that forced them to flee their homes. But hope can be found at the camp’s UNICEF-supported healthcare centre, where free treatment is provided and where we met five-month old Ashfat and her mother Fatimah.
Baby Ashfat is a poster child of an exclusively breastfed baby; plump, healthy and smooth-skinned. Among other children at the centre, she stands out. “It is only breast milk that I give to her,” beams Fatimah.
Exclusive breastfeeding in Nigeria is still rare, with only 25 per cent of mothers following the recommendation to provide only breast milk for the first six months of life or longer. The pressure to give water to new-borns in addition to breast milk is high. This creates problems because the baby’s stomach is so small that it can hardly hold 60ml of liquid. When filled with water, this leaves no room for breast milk and its life sustaining nutrients.
Little Ashfat is thriving because of UNICEF’s innovative Volunteer Community Mobiliser (VCM) network, women from the community who volunteer with UNICEF to spread information on how to improve the health of mothers and their children. There are more than fifty VCMs in the Dalori camp, where Ashfat was born and still resides. The network is a legacy created through the polio-eradication initiative which helps communities to better understand polio and the vaccine which prevents it. The VCM structure is supported with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and has been scaled up since the insurgency began.
“There are approximately two thousand five hundred VCMs in Borno state who provide lifesaving information about key household practices like breastfeeding, routine immunisation, hand washing, polio, hygiene and sanitation’, said Gerida Birukila, UNICEF’s Communication for Development Specialist who coordinates the area’s VCM deployment in the camps and host communities.
UNICEF VCMs have also created support groups for lactating mothers and pregnant women where mothers are encouraged to breastfeed exclusively. This is the same group that supported Fatimah, mother of Ashfat.
“When I was pregnant I told myself it would be difficult to breastfeed my child without giving her water in this hot weather. But when my baby was born the women’s group supported me. We met once a month and I learned how to breastfeed my daughter with breast milk only”, Fatimah said.
With 244, 000 children projected to be severely acutely malnourished this year in Borno state, being exclusively breastfed gives Ashfat a healthy start in life and a fighting chance to combat malnutrition.
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