The World Health Organization (WHO) says Nigeria and four other countries including China and India lose 236, 000 children yearly due to lack of policy on breastfeeding. The WHO made the disclosure in a recent report published in conjunction with United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Global Breastfeeding Collective (GBC). According to the report, no country in the world has fully met the required standard, a development that could increase fatality rate in children across the world.
The report entitled "Nurturing the Health and Wealth of Nations:The Investment Case for Breastfeeding" which was published on WHO website reads in part;
“The Global Breastfeeding Scorecard, which evaluated 194 nations, found that only 40% of children younger than six months are breastfed exclusively (given nothing but breast milk) and only 23 countries have exclusive breastfeeding rates above 60%. The scorecard was released at the start of World Breastfeeding Week alongside a new analysis demonstrating that an annual investment of only $4.70 per newborn is required to increase the global rate of exclusive breastfeeding among children under six months to 50% by 2025. The reported added that "meeting this target could save the lives of 520,000 children under the age of five and potentially generate $300 billion in economic gains over 10 years."
To address the issue the WHO recommended that government must improve access to skilled breastfeeding counseling as part of comprehensive breastfeeding policies and programmes in health facilities.
It further called for Increase funding to raise breastfeeding rates from birth through two years as well as Full implimentation of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and relevant World Health Assembly resolutions through strong legal measures that are enforced and independently monitored by organizations free from conflicts of interest, among others.
