LAFIA – Mrs Julie John, a nutritionist at the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital, Lafia, has advised mothers to give proper diet to their babies to avoid malnutrition.
John gave the advice in an interview with newsmen in Lafia.
According to her, after six months of exclusive breast feeding, mothers are expected to start introducing highly nutritious foods to their babies so as to avert malnutrition.
“From birth to six months, we encourage mothers to go on exclusive breast feeding.
“Where the problem starts is the six months that the mother is supposed to introduce other feeds to her baby. That is when most of the time we have problems of malnutrition,’’ she said.
The nutritionist said ‘pap’ was the common meal introduced to babies by poor mothers and urged them to always fortify the meal with necessary nutrients.
This, she said, would accelerate the growth of the baby and avert malnutrition.
“Mostly in Lafia and the local areas, mothers always give pap to their babies. Introducing pap is not bad, it is a carbohydrate meal.
Children need it for growth; they need it for energy, also.
“But the pap alone cannot sustain the child. So, they need to fortify it with groundnuts, soya beans, and crayfish which are very cheap in the market.
They can fortify the pap with any of these and it will help in the normal growth of the child,” John said.
