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Wednesday 19 December 2012

Mongoloid Baby?

She is 31years old and she had lost two pregnancies since she got married. But that doesn't matter any longer for she now has a baby...a baby boy. But there is a problem, a problem she is not aware of.
I thought of telling her but I deemed it necessary to first hear her story, as this will help guide how I inform her of the problem she is unaware of.

She is a yoruba lady with informal education. She has a shop where she sells weave-on and cosmetics. But recently, she has fallen out of business. The landlord of the building where her shop was located recently sold the house and the new owners ejected all the occupants saying "they need the facility for personal use".

Her husband works for Bajaj, a company she said is owned by Indians. The Indians have been having managerial issues and some workers had to be "axed", her husband was victim. Now he repairs generators, a skill he acquired while working for the Indians.

Her baby has been vomiting and has lost appetite for food. The baby is fair in complexion, had sparse, fluffy hair. He had flat nasal bridge and wider than normal space between both eyes. The ear was small and was hanging low and the shape of the lips was an inverted smile. I didn't bother to check the palms which I expected to have a single palmar line.

The facial features is known as a "Mongoloid Facie", it is seen in the congenital chromosal abnormality popularly known as Down Syndrome. 

The baby is a year old. I asked if he was walking? she answered no. Standing? no. Talking? not really.

How do I inform a 31 year old woman who has lost two pregnancies in the past, has only one child, had just lost her shop, and whose husband has also lost his job that the baby on her laps has Mongoloid Facies synonymous with Down Syndrome?

The way she will perceive it is that the baby is "abnormal".

I wrote her baby's prescriptions and wished her good luck.




1 comment:

  1. I Think you should have found a way to tell her. you just moved the buck to someone else.

    ReplyDelete

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