The continued denial of high cases of malnutrition in most parts of Southern Nigeria has spanned decades. Unfortunately, this development has robbed many children of a good start in life and may destroy their hopes for adulthood.

Good Health weekly x-rays the causes and silent burden of malnutrition in children in Oyo State. In the intensive care ward of the Oni Memorial Children’s Hospital, Oyo lies 4 months old Bode Adelaja.  At a tender age, Bode is manifesting symptoms of malnutrition such as saggy buttocks, weakness of the body, and a lean body with a sunken fontanel.

According to medical experts, infant malnutrition occurs when a child isn’t getting the right nutrition to be able to grow normally.

Bode was diagnosed with failure to thrive which has to do with malnutrition in children under the age of six months.

At presentation at the hospital, Bode weighed 2.9, a weight too low for his age. Bilikisu, his mother who took him to the hospital, had no idea the child was malnourished until doctors at the facility referred them to the malnutrition clinic in the same hospital where the baby’s indices were taken. It turned out that he was a failure to thrive case. Bode was born at one of the health facilities in the state. He was healthy at birth.

According to the mother, a month after his delivery, she noticed that he was losing weight and was not eating well. “At first, I thought it was a child’s thing that would go away but as the days and weeks passed, the problem continued.  I decided to take him to the alagbo (herb sellers) and we were given herbs to cook. “I gave him the herbs but there was no improvement. People advised me to get Infant formula which I did because I was not lactating. Still, his eating did not improve.”

Bode; according to the mother, was placed on herbs for two months.  “He bathes with it and also drinks some. We were also given another herb to put on his head as the opening on his head was getting wider. My child almost died.”

At this point, Bode was rushed to Oni Memorial Children’s Hospital where he was treated with only breast milk. Unfortunately, despite the importance of breastmilk in the nutrition of babies, in Oyo, exclusive breastfeeding is still at a lower level of less than 30 per cent, according to the Director-General, State Primary Healthcare Board, Dr. Kadija Omolara, while the 2017 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, MICS put the rate at 49.5 per cent. Vanguard