Mr Solomon Mbam, a Clinical Nutritionist, on Tuesday, advised pregnant women to eat foods that are rich in iron to avoid malnutrition in babies.
Mbam gave the advice in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Defining malnutrition as deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and nutrients, he said
that iron deficiency was the most common cause of malnutrition in infants.
He noted that nutrition cuts across all stages of human life, with both short and long term effects.
According to a report by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2015, an estimated two million children in Nigeria suffer from severe malnutrition.
It added that “the most vulnerable are children under the age of five years, because their diet is not rich in iron, which helps
mental development.
“So, it is expected from the inception of pregnancy and during breastfeeding that mothers eat foods that are
rich in iron to prevent deficiency in children.
“When children don’t have optimal amount of iron in the body for the brain to utilise for development, issues like mental retardation,
poor cognitive ability, among many others, affect such children.
“Mothers should eat foods like meat, fish, egg, spinach, nuts, beans, vegetables and others that are available.”