The Bauchi State Government, through the Primary Health Care Development Board and CASCADE (Care Nigeria), has created “nutrition corners” at primary health centers in the state to teach pregnant and nursing mothers how to combine recipes to make nutritious meals.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the state has 54,000 children battling malnutrition, with two in 10 children in Bauchi being malnourished.

To reduce the rate, the Board and the non-governmental organisation Care Nigeria, through its project “Facility-Based Nutrition Corner” supported by the Development Exchange Centre (DEC), donated nutritional ingredients and procedure guidelines to 50 PHCs in 10 local government areas.

The Project Manager of Cascade, Ishaya Daniel, while speaking at Miri PHC on Wednesday, explained that the organization discovered that most rural women lack the information and enlightenment to explore available grains and vegetables around them for a balanced diet.

He said, “We have decided to create this corner to target nursing and pregnant women during their antenatal care (ANC) to teach them some food combinations for nutrition, aiming to prevent rising cases of malnourished children. Health care workers have been trained to train the women.”

Also speaking, the Executive Chairman of the Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Board, Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed, commended the organisation for its partnership to lower the curve of malnutrition, saying it is critical to encourage them to do more while others are withdrawing their support.

He said, “Over the last five years, since I came onboard as the Chairman of the Board, I have always been thinking of how we can create nutrition corners in all our 323 PHCs per ward, but it has been difficult to do so. I’m very happy that our partner, Cascade, is doing this.”

Mohammed charged lactating mothers to embrace exclusive breastfeeding and simple nutritious food combinations to reduce the rate of stunting and wasting in children.