Yes, we can. HIV transmission from mother to child can occur during pregnancy, labour/delivery, and breastfeeding. However, this does not always have to be the case. Studies have shown that the risk of HIV transmission from mother to child is about 25-40% via the routes already mentioned. With the necessary interventions, this drops to…
Breastmilk remains the single most nutritious food your baby can ever get at the earliest stage of life. The WHO recommends that babies are fed exclusively on breastmilk for 6 months, then complementary feeds are added up till 2 years of life. This means that breast milk alone is more than enough for…
Most babies turn out to be average-sized at birth, around 2.5-4kg. Some turn out smaller than average while others are larger. The two opposite ends of this spectrum have their associated problems during pregnancy and delivery and even after. In this article, we will discuss why this happens, the problems it comes with,…
There are no two ways to ensuring a lifetime of optimum oral health in your kid. It’s all about starting now. Most babies start teething around 6 months. The first set of teeth are sparkling white and beautiful. Fast forward a few years, we have discoloured or even deformed teeth. In this article, we…
Many people would assume that cancers are a disease of the elderly. In many cases, this is true. However, you’d be interested to know that some cancers are more or less reserved for children. Some rarely occur in children older than 4 years. It’s easy to imagine that an adult has been exposed to many…
The TORCH syndrome may sound familiar to you if you have been pregnant before. The motherly instinct makes many women in pregnancy avid readers of medical resources regarding pregnancy and childbirth. If you have not heard of it before, here is your chance. TORCH syndrome is not just one problem. It is a cluster of…
It is never a happy moment when one is told that their child was born with a hole in the heart. After nine months of pregnancy and tough hours of labour, one can easily question why it had to happen. Surgery for these conditions can run into millions of naira. In a country like…
It’s very unlikely that you will meet a child with a dislike for sugar. If only sugar didn’t cause tooth decay in children, right? A good deal of our fears about their sugar intake would be allayed. However, we don’t get to choose what happens here. We can influence the outcome though. As a parent,…
The delivery experience comes with fresh apprehension and anxiety for the would-be mother. The ante-natal visits, the toll on the mother’s health all sum up to this. You can now imagine how heightened this apprehension can become when she’s informed that her baby was lying abnormally in her uterus. One form of this abnormal lie…
On Maternal Health today, we’d learn about one of the causes of antepartum haemorrhage, that is, bleeding before delivery- Placental abruption Naturally, the placenta, which is in charge of nutrient provision and waste removal in the developing fetus, develops in and attaches to the wall of the uterus, the part of the woman where the…