Chioma Umeha

By Chioma Umeha A non-governmental initiative, Save the Children, has lamented the ugly impact of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) with its complication in the country, noting that it has killed many children in Katsina State due to non-release of Nutrition Support Funds by some local governments. Nura Muhammad, the Area Operations Manager of the initiative, who said this in Katsina, on Monday, explained that Save the Children and UNICEF support children with malnutrition in 109 Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) centres in 15 local government areas of the State. Muhammad said: “ Save the Children and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) support children with malnutrition in 109 community to manage the condition. Muhammad also said that each of the benefiting local government was expected to contribute N250,000 for the purchase of drugs to children with SAM complications monthly. According to him, a malnourished child with other sickness

•As Self-repair Of Teeth Replaces Fillings – Scientists   By Chioma Umeha Teeth can be encouraged to repair themselves in a way that could see an end to fillings, say scientists. Scientific Reports, an online journal said: “The stem cells in our teeth can be energized to fill in chips, cracks, and cavities, researchers say, and the findings could one day possibly make dental cement obsolete.” The work has been conducted just in mice so far, but the research, published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports, highlights a way to motivate stem cells to repair tooth defects at a scale they normally cannot, with a drug that already has some safety testing behind it. The team at King’s College London showed that a chemical could encourage cells in the dental pulp to heal small holes in mice teeth. A biodegradable sponge was soaked in the drug and then put inside the cavity. The study, published in Science Reports, showed it led to “complete, effective nat

By Chioma Umeha The US National Institutes of Health has urged mothers to start regular feeding of their babies from between four and six months of age, with foods containing peanuts, saying that this lowers their chances of becoming allergic. The new guidelines explain that recent scientific research has demonstrated that introducing peanut-containing foods to children as young as four to six months can prevent the development of allergies, which tend to start in childhood and continue through adulthood. The guidelines, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, are based on the results of a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) clinical trial in 2015 that found an 81 percent reduction in children thought to be at high-risk of developing a peanut allergy from doing so after the early introduction of peanut consumption as infants. With allergies among children on the rise in recent years, and no treatment or cure a

By Chioma Umeha •             Culture Prohibits Mothers From Feeding Newborns With Colostrum •             UNICEF Seeks Expansion Of Interventions To All LGAs   By Onche Odeh The figures are scary but real. That more than half the number of all children between the ages of six to 59 months you see in Bauchi are stunted or low height for age, a form of malnutrition caused by long-term insufficient nutrient intake and frequent infections. The situation is not better with women as Bauchi is rated in the 2015 National Nutrition Health Survey (NNHS 2015) among 10 states, mostly in Northern Nigeria with over 10 per cent prevalence level of malnutrition in Nigeria. In 2014, Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) and Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) were reported above critical cut-off points of 15 per cent and two per cent respectively for Bauchi and two other States including Jigawa and Yobe. Although none of the States surveyed in 2015 reported such critical prevalenc

By Chioma Umeha More than1,594,462 Nigerian children in the States from the North West are presently suffering from malnutrition, even as the region is fighting to free them from the monster. The estimate which is from the United Nation Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also showed that Nigeria loses about 2,300 under-fives every day, making the country, second largest contributor to the under-five deaths the world. Similarly, UNICEF’s estimate stated that there are 2,539,704 malnourished Nigerian children which the agency categorised as those that have been adversely affected by Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). It was further learnt that seven States in the zone accounts for more than 75 per cent of the total severe malnutrition cases recorded in Nigeria last year. According to reports, the governments of Kano, Kaduna, Jigawa, Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina and SokotoStates are, however, taking measures to provide medication to affected women and children, and prevent new

Abiodun Adewuya, a Professor of Psychiatrics in Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) and a Psychiatrist, recently spoke with CHIOMA UMEHA on issues of mental illnesses during the recent mental health workshop for clinicians in primary health centres (PHC) in Lagos State. Excerpts: Sir, when a case of mental illnesses has been confirmed what are the steps that should be taken to address it? If a case of mental illness is confirmed by health workers, and it is among the common mental disorders – that is mild and moderate mental disorder; our trained health workers are to either offer treatment in form of psychological treatment or medications. If those cases cannot be treated at the Primary Health Care(PHC) Centre, what we are trying to do is to make sure that they are referred to either the General Hospital or the Teaching Hospital or Federal Psychiatric Hospital in Yaba. This is because we discovered from our studies that between 20 per cent a

By Chioma Umeha Women today are choosing to have children later in life than ever before. Egg freezing, technically known as oocyte cryopreservation, can enable a woman to delay pregnancy until a later stage. In 1980, the average American woman had her first baby at the age of 22. By 2000, that age had risen to almost 25, and in 2014, the average woman waited until the age of 26 to have her first child. In the United Kingdom, the number of women having children over the age of 40 years has tripled since 1980. In 2016, more British women over 40 years old gave birth than those younger than 20 years old. In the United States, 2.3 per cent of all births are to women aged 40 to 44 years. Society may be changing, but the biological realities of fertility remain the same. Most women enter menopause in their late 40s or early 50s. In the years before menopause, a woman’s fertility declines. Although the life experience of an older woman may mean she is well equipped t