Rotary Club Ikoyi has enjoined nursing mothers to practice exclusive breastfeeding to protect their babies against cholera, saying that practicing exclusive breastfeeding would help babies fight diseases.
The president of the club, Mr Emmanuel Efuntayo, advised during the presentation of diapers, mosquito nets, and other items to nursing mothers at the Iru/Victoria Island Health Centre, Lagos State, in commemoration of Rotary Maternal and Child Health Month.
Efuntayo said the Rotary Club decided to join the campaign for exclusive breastfeeding because it was a veritable way of preventing diseases, including cholera, noting that there was no better time to advocate for or promote breastfeeding and good hygiene than now.
“We know that cholera as an illness has a water and sanitation relationship.
“So we are also advocating that at least every nursing mother should give exclusive breastfeeding in a hygienic manner to their children for at least two years.
“I was breastfed exclusively for more than a year by my mother, so exclusive breastfeeding is for good health and disease prevention.
“I believe that exclusive breastfeeding has a way of protecting a child against all manners of diseases, especially now that we have cholera,” he said.
Efuntayo urged the beneficiaries to make judicious use of the donated items, saying that they should not sell them as it was for their wellbeing and their babies, just as he noted that the donated items, worth N690,000, were another way the club was promoting maternal and child health.
“We will be following up with more of these as well as delivery packs. We will be providing outreach services to the five wards. Rotarians from our club will join some outreach teams.
“We are also participating in health talks on clinic days in support of child vaccination and health education for expectant mothers,” he said.
Also speaking, the District Governor of District 9112 Rotary International, Mr. Femi Adenekan, charged nursing mothers to be health-conscious in view of the cholera epidemic in the country, saying that he expected mothers to increase their hygiene level at this time to combat cholera.
The District Governor also urged them to use the health centres when they noticed anything affecting their health and that of their children, saying that maternal and child health was the third area of focus out of the club’s seven areas of focus.
According to him, July marks Maternal and Child Health Month, saying that the club was using the opportunity to move around and extend more of its goodwill and support for the less privileged in the community.
The chairman of the council, Mrs. Rasheedat Abiodun-Adu, in her own remark, lauded the Rotary Club of Ikoyi for coming out to impact nursing mothers in the council.
She described the gesture for the day with beneficiaries numbering about 200 as massive, adding: “All the items that they brought here are not what we can see everywhere for everybody to be able to afford.”
The Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Health, District III, Dr. Monsurat Adeleke, in her vote of thanks, called for more public-private partnerships to reduce the deaths of pregnant mothers and babies in the state.
The permanent secretary, while thanking the Rotary Club Ikoyi for the donation, said the laudable initiative was also in tandem with what Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu set aside for pregnant mothers and babies in the state and to move governance and development closer to the people at the grassroots.
Adeleke noted that there were 66 primary healthcare centres in District III, saying that the many centres were deliberately created to boost access to healthcare in the area.
She, therefore, urged the club to replicate the gesture in other council areas in order to impact more people.
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