Pakistan Observer
BALOCHISTAN, Pakistan — About 1200 health care providers have been trained to discourage the trend of suggesting artificial formula milk to the infants and promote breastfeeding said health practitioners during a session, organized by the Provincial Nutrition Cell in collaboration with the UNICEF, at a local hotel on Monday. The health practitioners including Dr. Abid Panezai, Dr Esa Jogezai said that root cause of about 90 percent children’s malnutrition in Balochistan is no exclusive breastfeeding, adding that 30 percent children who suffer acute malnutrition die of simple infection due to their weakness.
“Health department in collaboration with UNICEF has trained about 1200 health providers including doctors, nurses and paramedics in rural and urban areas of the province to promote breastfeeding,” they said. The child mortality rate and mother mortality rate in Pakistan they noted that some 72 infants out of 1,000 did not complete their first birthday and die every year while death of 280 women out of 1, 00000 who die during pregnancy annually is an alarming number.
They said that there is dire need of taking drastic measures to decrease the ratio of CMR and MMR to achieve the Development Millennium Goals. There is very low level of breastfeeding in Pakistan compared to other countries in Asia, they deplored adding the superstition.
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