Although the production of milk may come easily, getting it from the breast to the stomach is a skill that requires a little bit of knowledge and a lot of practice. At best, the initial attempts made by a brand-new mother and her infant to breastfeed are a frustrating and unsatisfying failure for both parties involved. However, ensuring that your newborn is positioned correctly is vital for ensuring that they latch on correctly and for reducing nipple discomfort and other difficulties associated with nursing.
The act of transferring milk from a mother to her infant is known as breastfeeding. According to research published by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (2009) and Heckman (2011), breastfeeding is essential to a baby’s ability to live and develop into a healthy adult. Breast milk provides an infant with all of the necessary calories and nutrients for proper growth and development (National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, 2009).
Women who do not have any health issues are encouraged by the policy Statement on Breastfeeding issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). This recommendation states that women should breastfeed their infants exclusively for at least the first six months of their lives (AAP,2012). It is impossible to place enough emphasis on the significance of proper baby nutrition and the critical part that nursing plays in ensuring a child’s continued survival, growth, and development (AAP, 2012).
The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that mothers breastfeed their children for a total of two years, that they nurse their children exclusively for the first six months, and that they breastfeed their babies more than eight times per day in the first three months of their lives. According to recommendations made by the AAP, a mother should make every effort to breastfeed her child for the first year of their life.
The rates of exclusive breastfeeding in Nigeria are lower than those recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), which promotes the practice of exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of a baby’s life. This is despite the documented benefits of exclusive breastfeeding during the first months of a child’s life, as well as the difficulties associated with promoting this practice. Breastfeeding a baby has health benefits for both the mother and the child, some of which include lowering the risk of the mother developing gestational diabetes, osteoporosis, and breast cancer. Breastfeeding a baby exclusively for the first six months and then continuing to breastfeed in addition to appropriate solid foods until the baby is twelve months old and beyond also has health benefits. It can also assist women in shedding extra pounds after giving birth, and it can hasten the process by which a woman’s uterus returns to its size and shape before she became pregnant.
There is a possibility that the infants will have a lower chance of developing gastro intestinal sickness, allergies, asthma, diabetes, obesity, certain pediatric cancers, respiratory infections, and diarrhoea. Other potential benefits include these.
According to the WHO Global data on infant and young Child Feeding in Nigeria in the year 2003, 22.3 percent of children were exclusively breastfed for less than 4 months, while 17.2 percent were exclusively breastfed for less than 6 months. These statistics are based on the fact that 17.2 percent of children were exclusively breastfed for less than 6 months. In 2008, the Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) found that 17 percent of children had been nursed exclusively for less than 4 months, while 13 percent had been breastfed exclusively for fewer than 6 months. In Southwest Nigeria in the year 2003, the median amount of time spent exclusively breastfeeding a child was seven months.
In the year 2008, it had been for a period of six months. Early commencement of breastfeeding among women in the region was 12.7 percent in the year 2003, but it climbed to 35.5 percent in the year 2008 over the course of the same length of time.
All of these percentages are significantly lower than the level of 90 percent that is suggested by the WHO. As a result, the rate of child mortality stays relatively high in low- and middle-income countries. When looking at selected nations in sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria has the highest rural death rate for children under the age of five at 242.7 per 1,000. (National Center for Health Statistics (2008); National Population Commission (2009); World Health Organization (2010))
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