COVID-19 hardship: Bauchi mothers resort to consumption of ‘Kunu’ to breastfeed their babies.

A popular cereal drink commonly called
‘Kunu’ has come to the aid of
breastfeeding mothers in Bauchi State in
the face of lingering hardship occasioned
by the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic,
which has adversely affected economies
around the world.

A measure of millet or sorghum ( the primary material for the production of Kunu) in Bauchi which sells for #350 can make about 6-10 litres of Kunu according to experts.

Lamenting the hike in food prices, breast feeding mothers who spoke to Arewa voice said that they mostly depend on Kunu drink for milk production for their newborn babies as a result of inadequate food ration.

In a conversation with Kauna Ibrahim, a housewife in one of the suburban areas of the Bauchi metropolis, she said that her household eat only twice a day because her husband lost his job five months ago.

“You know, things are not easy anymore
Everything you touch in the market now is
almost three times the amount it was
sold a few months ago. For the past five
months since my husband lost his job, we
have been feeding twice a day. And as
you can see, I am nursing a newborn baby
so I drink a lot of Kunu to compensate for
the shortage in my daily food ration.
Babies don’t care to know whether there
is food for the mother, they must eat”.

“I don’t know what I would have done
without this alternative. Thank God we
harvested a lot of millet from our farm.
Every week we prepare what will be
enough to last me a month. I hope things
get better but this is how I have been
managing to keep myself and my young
son alive,” she said.

Another mother, Rakiya Ahmed who also
said she uses the drink to complement
her meals for optimum breast milk
production told our reporter than she
learnt the skill from her mother before she
moved to the city.

Providing medical explanation on how
Kunu drink stimulates breast milk, Dr
Ahmed Abu, said even though there is no
medical explanation yet on how Kunu
drink stimulates the production of breast
milk, he many nursing mothers in the
north rely on the local nutrient to feed
their babies.

“For some mothers, production of breast
milk for their babies to suck and grow can
pose a big challenge. Kunu drink,
especially in this part of the country, has
helped a lot of mothers in the production
of breast milk for their babies. Although
the explanation for this is still vague, there
is no argument that nursing mothers take
lot of it as a means of boosting milk
production to breastfeed their babies,” he
said.