body-container-line-1
28.04.2009 Health

Mothers urged to attend child welfare clinics

28.04.2009 LISTEN
By gna

Accra, April 28, GNA - The Ghana Health Service (GHS) on Tuesday advised nursing mothers to ensure that their infants attended the child welfare clinics, popularly called “weighing”, for up to five years in order to help reduce under -five mortality and morbidity.

GHS also asked them to make good use of the child health records, also known as the “weighing card”, to promote child health.

Dr Isabella Sagoe-Moses, National Child Health Coordinator, GHS, gave the advice at a press briefing in Accra on this year's Child Health Promotion Week Campaign.

The campaign which would be from May 4-8 would have the theme: “Follow Your Child Growth - Use Your Child Health Records”. It is to draw the attention of health workers and nursing mothers on the importance of the use of child health records.

Dr Sagoe-Moses pointed out that child health records served as a guide to caregivers on breastfeeding, immunization, home care management, nutrition and family planning and therefore remained an effective tool to promote child health.

This year's campaign, she said, would therefore sensitize the public on child health, undertake child growth monitoring, distribute vitamin A supplements and include the treatment of insecticide treated nets and birth registration.

She said the GHS also hoped to introduce new standards for monitoring child growth and development in the country in accordance with the World Health Organization standards.

Dr Sagoe-Moses noted that childhood mortality levels were still high in the country and therefore called for the collaboration of all to reverse the trend.

She said: “111 children out of 1,000 die before age five.”

Mr Kingsley Asare Addo, Principal Assistant Registrar of the Births and Deaths Registry, said the campaign in previous years had help to increase birth registration.

He advised mothers to take advantage of the exercise to register their children in order to provide the country with adequate data on births for effective development planning.

Mrs Ruth Addison, National Coordinator of Early Childhood Development, urged health workers to take their time to educate nursing mothers to enable them to understand the child health records.

GNA

body-container-line