April 18, (THEWILL) – The Coordinator of the Office of the First Lady, Akwa Ibom State, Lady Helen Eno Obareki, has urged managements of Primary Healthcare Centres, Traditional Birth Attendants, and wives of Local Government Chairmen to intensify sensitisation of mothers on the importance of birth registration in their areas.
Lady Helen made the call on Wednesday during the Empowerment Programme for Multiple Birth Families, organised under the Maternal and Child Healthcare thematic area of the Golden Initiative For All (GIFA). She decried the high number of children in the state without birth certificates and emphasised the significance of documenting the birth of newborns.
“It is important that the birth of babies is properly documented. My staff initially gave me a list of 330 babies, but when I insisted that all the babies must have birth certificates, the number reduced drastically,” she said.
She stressed the need for mothers to register their children’s births, regardless of whether the delivery took place at a hospital, home, or with a Traditional Birth Attendant.
While expressing appreciation to Governor Umo Eno for his unwavering support for GIFA, Lady Obareki, who also chairs the Board of Trustees of GIFA, congratulated the families on the safe delivery of their twins, triplets, and quadruplets.
She, alongside female stakeholders in the state, distributed care packages to the families of multiple birth children to help cushion the burden of raising them.
Earlier, the Special Assistant to the Governor on General Duties, Mrs Anne Abraham, described the empowerment programme as an extension of the Maternal and Child Healthcare component of GIFA. She said the initiative specifically targets families with babies aged 0–3 months and also supports fathers who lost their spouses during childbirth. She commended stakeholders and development partners for their dedication to the GIFA vision.
Also speaking at the event, the State Nutrition Officer, Dr Idongesit Umoh, delivered a health talk on exclusive breastfeeding. She described breast milk as the perfect first food for infants, essential for brain development and natural family planning.
Dr Umoh advocated for exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, the introduction of complementary foods thereafter, and a six-month paid maternity leave policy to support nursing mothers. She urged mothers to consume a balanced diet and breastfeed their babies at least eight times daily and on demand.
In their goodwill messages, the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, Mrs Inibehe Silas; the Executive Secretary of the State Primary Healthcare Agency, Dr Eno Attah; and the Chairman of the House Committee on Women Affairs, Hon. Selina Ukpato, paid glowing tributes to the late Pastor Patience Umo Eno, who laid the foundation for the GIFA Multiple Birth Programme. They also lauded Lady Helen Obareki for sustaining her mother’s legacy.
The high point of the event was the presentation of care packages to families of multiple birth children by Lady Helen.
Responding on behalf of the beneficiaries, a mother of quadruplets, Mrs Nseobong Uloh, thanked Lady Helen for the support extended to multiple birth families, saying it would go a long way in easing their challenges.
