A Paediatrician, Dr Okiemute Olibamoyo, on Wednesday called on stakeholders in the health sector to educate mothers against indulging in practices injurious to their children’s health.
Olibamoyo of the Department of Paediatrics, College of Medicine, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos.
According to her, there are lots of practices being performed by mothers on their children that are wrong.
She said: “Only regular and frequent public health enlightenment can stop it.
“One of such common and deadly practices being performed by mothers is when a child has a seizure or convulsion as most people know.
“You see the mother putting the child’s feet in hot oil, water or fire. This is wrong.
“Like the one that we saw in our children’s emergency where the child’s feet was severely burnt because he had convulsion and the mother’s resolve was to put the child’s feet on a burning stove.’’
The expert said the right thing to do in cases of convulsion in children was to move the child away from harmful areas and objects, so as to avoid harming himself further.
She said that convulsion only last for a minute, except if it is the protracted one which could last for about 30 minutes.
Olibamoyo warned mothers against putting spoon or other objects in the child’s mouth when he or she was convulsing, saying that it could cause more injuries to the child.
She said: “It can even puncture their gums and the back of the throat or break their jaws, depending on what the person trying to help used.
“The person trying to help can also get a serious bite.”
She advised that a child with prolonged convulsion should be quickly rushed to a nearby hospital for help.
Olibamoyo said that convulsion in children was caused by high fever, adding that this was because their regulatory mechanism for fever was not well developed.
She urged mothers to ensure proper management of fever in their children, advising that proper drugs should be given to control it.
Olibamoyo blamed poverty, ignorance and poor female education as major reasons why mothers went into some of those dangerous practices.
She said: “In all of these, I will say, the level of poverty in Nigeria, ignorance and low female education are the reasons these things happen and it should be addressed.”
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