Bhubaneswar: A media roundtable on improving nutrition for children, focusing mostly on important behaviours in breastfeeding and complementary feeding of infant and young children, was held at Centre for Youth and Social Development (CYSD) office here Wednesday. The event was jointly organised by Unicef and Department of Women and Child Development, Government of Odisha.
The media roundtable aimed to build an enhanced understanding on the importance of breastfeeding and complementary feeding in the state. It also stressed on the best practices and importance of behavioural changes and role of the media in creating awareness.
Interacting with Orissa POST, Alka Gupta, communication specialist of Unicef Odisha said, “Today’s discussion is to make the media aware about overview and global perspective of Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) focusing on the first 1,000 days of the child.” She mentioned that the roundtable also dealt with the subjects of breastfeeding, complementary foods and other feeding practices. Alka also added that IYCF practice is considered as one of the most successful steps to decrease infant mortality rate and chronic child under-nutrition globally.
Odisha’s performance in achieving IYCF core indicators set by World Health Organization (WHO) is better than the national average. Through this discussion we aim to aware the media so that they can spread the information in urban and rural areas, she added.
The roundtable was addressed by Swapan Bikash Saha from CINI, Kolkata, Ram Kumar, Assistant Professor at MKCG Berhampur, Sunil Agarwal, Associate Professor at MKCG, Berhampur and Lingaraj Mishra, MD, Director and member of Unicef Odisha.