'Children suffer from malnutrition due to ignorance about rich food value of breast milk'

A CORRESPONDENT

DHUBRI: Dr Tapas Majumdar, a pediatrician, said that the primary cause of prevailing malnutrition among the children was ignorance about the rich food value of breast milk.

Dr Majumdar was addressing a meeting of mothers with newborn babies, organized by Dr. Panna Lal Oswal Memorial Committee on the 22nd death anniversary of Dr. Oswal, with the support of Maa Club of RK Mission Road of Dhubri on Thursday.

Dr. Majumdar said that till the age of six months, baby should only be fed breast milk, nothing else as it contained many nutritional properties, which could not be found in any other milk. So feeding the baby with only mother's milk immensely helps to make the baby grow healthy with a sound mind, Dr Majumdar added.

"It is totally a wrong conception prevailing among most of the mothers that their babies remain underfed, because a mother on average produces 750 ml milk daily, while a baby needs only 300 ml milk a day. So a mother can feed other baby from her breast milk besides feeding her own baby," Dr Majumdar explained.

He also said that after six months, a baby should be given home-cooked semi-solid food, and after one year baby should be given all the food that adults take at home.

Nearly 70 children along with their mothers underwent health check-up by a team of physicians led by Dr. Majumdar and Dr. Robin Sarma and all the medicines prescribed were given free of cost along with a gift packet containing nutritional food, soap, toothpaste and playing materials. September being the Poshan Maah (Nutritional Month) for children, a team of physicians from Rashtriya Bal Swasth Kariakram also joined the children's health check-up camp. The memorial meeting was presided over by senior member of the committee, JM Surana. The meeting was also addressed by an academician, Akhil Bandhu Dutta. Hemant Oswal, grandson of Dr. Panna Lal Oswal, was behind the programme which ended successfully.

Also Read: Collective efforts needed to check child mortality due to malnutrition: CM Sarma

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