NNIA engages key healthcare professionals on early nutrition in Nigeria

Leveraging on the window of opportunity of the first 1 000 days of life, NNIA embarked on engaging healthcare professionals in Nigeria on issues of nutrition in the first 1 000 days of life and subsequent health outcome later in Life.

Nine centres across Nigeria agreed to host these engagement sessions, with five of these, reaching 147 key healthcare professionals, already held in Jos, Abuja, Kaduna, Lagos and Abeokuta.

The main area of discussion focused on ensuring the correct quantity of protein consumption, neither too much nor too little, as each has negative health implications. The critical importance of iron in infant nutrition also formed part of the discussions. It was agreed that efforts must be made to ensure that an iron gap, or lack of iron, is covered through appropriate nutrition to avoid the negative outcome of micronutrient deficiencies.

Dr Adeline Okechukwu, Senior Lecturer at the Abuja University Teaching Hospital stated: “Iron is present in all cells of the body and in a state of deficiency can interfere with vital functions in the body, leading to morbidity and mortality”. She advocated for initiation of complementary feeding with iron-rich foods, which facilitate iron absorption, among other things, as a way of closing the iron gap during the critical first 1000 days of life

The remaining four meetings were completed during October.