Since the onset of this current recession in the country, reports from various Nigerian hospitals have shown a sharp increase in the number of patients seen.
A practical example being played out at the Federal Neuro Psychiatric Hospital, FNPH, in Yaba, Lagos shows that the tertiary hospital recorded a 59 per cent increase in new cases in 2016 compared with 2015, according to Dr. Olamide Oluwaniyi, a consultant psychiatrist at the FNPH Yaba.
Similarly, Oluwaniyi disclosed that at the community clinic (nonpsychiatric cases): a 95 per cent increase in clinic attendance was also recorded for the same year under review.
Apart from mental health disorders that are triggered by ongoing recession, medical experts have also raised the alarm over rising mental health problems arising during the period when the child was still being formed in the womb, during deliveries, among others.
It has been observed that many children in the course of formation had been exposed to the damaging impact of hard drugs such as cocaine, alcohol and cigarettes.
It has been well documented that a mother who uses drugs while pregnant could bring irreversible damage to a baby. Studies are now showing that a father who uses cocaine at the time of conception can also have negative, even life threatening effects on the child.
While a father’s drug use cannot cause addiction in the child, it can mutate the DNA which has a direct result on the physical and mental capabilities of the child, a study published in the Journal of the ‘American Medical Association’, AMA revealed.
Deformities and retardation can be the result of the father’s drug use. Similarly, it has been disclosed that numerous damages are caused to children in the course of their delivery, resulting to brain damage which have lasting impact throughout the lifetime of affected kids.
Highlighting these problems especially how they have contributed to rising cases of mental illness in the country, the Head of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service Centre, CAMHS in Oshodi, Dr. Oluwayemi Ogun said over the years of working with children and caregivers “what we have constantly observed is the highly prevalent obstetric complications associated with the problems that our patients present with.”
“Initial data in the clinic has shown that 68 per cent of them had problems during pregnancy, birth or within one year of birth. This is of public health importance,” she said.
To this end, Ogun said it has become very important to educate female adolescents and young adults on the need for adequate planning for pregnancy in order to stem the high incidents and prevalence of maternal mortality, infant mortality and the mental health problems associated from pregnancy, pueperium and the post-natal periods.
This is what the 5th Annual workshop on Child and Adolescent Mental Health, CAMH, a one week workshop organised by the CAMHS centre, Oshodi Annexe of the FNPH, in Yaba was planned to address.
It is targeted at health workers, educationists as well as parents of children having mental health problems and the general public, too. Although, the lectures are not meant to turn the participants to specialists in mental health in one week, Ogun said “the lectures have been so chosen so as to educate you, raise awareness level and to remind us all of the need to improve on the preventive, treatment, diagnosis and rehabilitatio0n of children and adolescents with mental health challenges.”
The standard practice is that within 12 to 14 hours, the baby from the first pregnancy should be delivered. However, when the delivery is delayed or prolonged, both the child and its mother are tired.
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The mother can no longer push to effect quick delivery of the baby. “By the time that child is born there is what is called bad asphyxia, meaning that the child will not be able to breath. Care givers will have to resuscitate the child by beating the child to enable it breath or give the newborn oxygen. Already the brain of such a child is being insulted. This is part of what prolonged labour can cause.
“In some deliveries, the pelvis of the mother is too small and during the contraction of the head, moving forward and backward from the uterus to the vagina, that baby will not be able to come out as well.
“Caregivers in such instances could resort to forceps delivery, a device used to help bring the baby out and during the process, the brain of the child is equally being insulted and if this falls into the hands of obstetricians or some doctors that do not know how to do this, the more damage is done to the brain of the child.” According to Ogun, although, it is not all the children that go through this ordeal that will develop health challenges, many of them will certainly develop problems in their brains.”
She noted that many children with developmental problems including cerebral palsy, CP, kids with intellectual impairment including mental retardation, arose from obstetrics challenge, though some like Down syndrome are genetic in nature. Others include children that are very restless – Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders, ADHD, and Autistic children. It is estimated that more than 50 per cent of adult mental problems start in adolescent stage.
It is at this period that people begin to experience schizophrenia, depression and all sorts of mental health problems She added, “the only thing we do not see in adolescents is Dementia which happens in people that are 65 years and above. Hence, many mental health problems take their root from the gestation to infant years and up till the adolescent age, Ogun stated.
Speaking further, Ogun stressed the need to plan pregnancies and for the populace to know that prevention is the key to tackle these myriads of child mental health challenges.
When a pregnancy is planned, the head of CAMHS reasoned that an affected couple will be ready for responsibilities that would ensure its successful outcome including picking bills for cesarean surgery when the need arises to save both mother and the baby. According to her, anybody that is going to get pregnant should not do it too early, before 20 years of age and not too late as these categories of pregnancies are fraught with problems. Research has shown that early and late pregnancies are fraught with risks, she added.
Ogun also lamented that many deliveries are not taken by skilled health care workers in hospitals, hence, resulting to numerous complications including mental health issues in the newborn.
On his part, the Acting Medical Director of the FNPH in Yaba, Dr. Richard Adebayo said the training was meant to enlighten participants to know more about child and adolescent mental health disorders and the way forward. According to Adebayo, children suffering mental disabilities should not be abandoned somewhere. “Help can come their way.
We can make use of modern medical intervention and assist these children, rather than just banish them or sending them to the villages where they are forgetten. Similarly, he noted that educationists and health workers also need to be abreast of developments worldwide on how to care for this group of children. “Knowledge is power.
The essence of the workshop is to enlighten people so that they will be able to deliver better results in the area of care for these children with special needs.” While highlighting the burden of child mental health disorders, Adebayo affirmed that the burden was huge; it could be debilitating.
“As usual, we may have issue with the data, but these children are there and they are many; if you come to our centre here, you will know that they are many but they are suppressed, and forgotten.” Adebayo lamented that nobody wants to identify with these children, not even their parents. However, he said despite the stigma they face, the problems are not due to their own fault.
“It means individuals, families, societies and governments should all work together to see how we can reduce the suffering of these children, and by extension to their parents.
“Their parents need to be encouraged not to abandon them, not to kill them silently, but to help and assist them.” He said, may not be able to help them turn around their fortune 100 per cent, but to a large extent, as long as they can be less dependent on others in the future, the better for them.”
By: Appolonia Adeyemi
New Telegraph News
ABUJA: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
PORTHARCOURT: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
LAGOS: Training Schedule for Basic Life Support BLS, Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support ACLS, First Aid, CPR, AED
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