WHEN THE MALNOURISHED BREASTFEEDS
By Tunji Ajayi
I have just reneged on my sacred vow of 1994. In that year, I vowed never to visit the orthodox hospital again. It was not because I did not bother about my good health. I place a very high premium on daily informative jingles by our electronic media aimed at sensitizing the masses to be health-conscious by consulting the hospital regularly for medical checks-up and prompt diagnosis of ailments. Nothing drove me away from the hospital other than the usual instruction by the physician that has now gone hackneyed: “Use these drugs three times daily after each meal.”
But slavish adherence to traditions and past precepts is an enemy of societal growth. Call me an ignoramus, I do not care. I can always argue that our medical doctors have continually remained conservative and have refused to face the realities of our hard time in Africa. Technology has grown while medicine has not satisfied my curiosity. Or for how long shall we continue to use these drugs three times daily after each meal? Where are the meals? Who eats three times daily in our present day Africa, and indeed Nigeria except the few privileged people? Let our researchers in the fields of pharmacy and medicine make fine and long-expected breakthrough and discover efficacious drugs that will cure our intractable ailments, and yet be adaptable to our now-traditional 0-1-0 or 1-0-1feeding pattern. As for me, my memory has failed me, and I am yet to remember the exact day I ate three square meals. Perhaps, I may know the date when I got my 1983 pocket diary.
I have learnt to appreciate that the best way to rejoice with any of my friends or colleague’s wife who delivered a baby, whether bouncing or not, is to quickly pay her and her newly-born baby a visit, as soon as the good news filters out, while still recuperating in the hospital. Otherwise, if they returned home before visiting to celebrate with them, the legs may become “heavy” on the ground and unable to freely take exit, for not having money or befitting presents for the newly-arrived baby especially in the prying eyes of fellow well-wishers. We have a tradition of being benevolent and free-giving in Africa, as we often find it odd not being able to present gifts to celebrants on their joyous occasions. At least, no matter the degree of your benevolence, you cannot present what you do not have. Money is scarce now, and babies are no longer being showered with bountiful gifts like it used to be in the past.
And so, immediately I heard of the good news recently that a colleague’s wife had just delivered a bouncing baby, I rushed out with my two fast legs to the hospital’s delivery ward to rejoice and give my affordable present to the lucky baby.
“Why paying visit in the hospital and not the home of the lucky parents?” One of the inquisitive medical officers in the ward asked me, while looking at me in utter derision and contemptibly. I conjured an answer: ” Ah, I was so happy and excited on hearing the good news, that I couldn’t afford to wait much longer than to extend my warm greetings to the lucky mother and the new baby.” I offered my prayer for the baby. “May you live long”. “May you earn travel visa to move out before you grow too old to travel out of this suffocating Nigeria space.” (Amen). And that was the bountiful gifts I could afford to present the lucky baby. I rushed out of the delivery ward, albeit with utter shame. Nonetheless, my worries and anxieties were over. At least the family would never accuse me of not rejoicing with them.
But the exit end of the delivery ward took me close to a large hall where nursing mothers, in joyous mood, with their babies carefully held on their backs, were dancing exuberantly under the watchful eyes of a woman medical officer, who also danced to my admiration while chorusing their songs in unison. I could not stop being inquisitive. I must know what gave rise to such endless dancing and chorusing songs in unison in a hospital ward. Perhaps, the euphoria of successful delivery needed to be extended to the hospital wards. Oh, no! I now got the clue. The World Breast Feeding Week had just begun! And every nursing mother in the ward needed to celebrate, dance and receive professional advice from the in-house medical experts.
In drama, the object of playing a part well is thinking yourself into it. Thus, to act a drunkard, you need to momentarily become a drunkard; stagger and talk unintelligibly, and perhaps wet your body with your own urine! And to act an imbecile, you simply open your mouth wide, while laughing merrily unnecessarily at odd and irregular times. If I must listen and enjoy the lecture on breast-feeding and its importance on children’s growth, then I must transmute into being an “emergency nursing father”. And so, I stood in their midst, dancing and chorusing varying songs with the mammoth crowd of nursing mothers.
The medical officer advised the mothers on the need to breast-feed their babies well enough every day into their 18th month of life because the breast-milk, according to her, contains every nutrient which their babies need for their physical and mental growth. Breast milk also has the antibodies capable of protecting the baby to build up body resistance to every form of infectious disease aside from the provision of loving care and motherly affection and intimacy, which feeding the baby with breast milk provides. This, according to the medical expert, stimulates emotional growth of the baby. There was a total silence followed by a spontaneous applause from the nursing mothers and myself, the only “nursing father” in the large hospital hall.
The medical expert then warned us to avoid the use of powdered formulas as baby-feed which, according to her, is never a good and perfect substitute for breastfeeding. According to her, aside from the high cost of powdered formulas which makes feeding our babies very costly, breast-milk on the other hand, costs mothers almost nothing other than personal attention. Worse still, mothers may mistakenly mix powdered formula with contaminated water which may cause havoc on baby’s health and subsequently impair growth, or cause fatal death.
Every nursing mother and the only nursing father had some lessons to learn and to take home on that day. I entered into my PDM car and was about to zoom off when some of the nursing mothers besieged my branded Papa-Dash-Me car pleading for a free ride. I took a deep and careful look at some of these nursing mothers with their skinny bodies and haggard looks. A painful thought ran through me: “How will these malnourished mothers feed their babies with nutritious breast milk?”
I am not a medical doctor, but I can always argue from dawn till dusk that any malnourished mother, with evidently flabby breast, has no salubrious breast milk to feed and provide good nutrients and antibodies for physical and mental growth of her baby (ceteris paribus or not).
And so, the medical experts heart-warming and highly inspiring lectures became mere sloganeering, while the importance of breast-feeding the baby, and the glamour of the World Breastfeeding Week faded away from my heart spontaneously.
Most nursing mothers can no longer feed well in Nigeria, and indeed Africa. Consequently, many may continue to produce highly malnourished and mentally retarded children, otherwise known as imbeciles. The serious negative effects on national growth may not be felt now. Let us wait till the near future to see how our utter ineptitude and abysmal failures of today towards improving the economic and living standards of the families, have negative and far reaching effects on our tomorrow. Verbum Satis Sapienti
*Tunji Ajayi; biographer, author & documentary producer writes from Lagos, Nigeria
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