 The vulnerable parent, having a baby has always and should be a blessing for any family, however, this is not always the case. There are many reasons why a child may be born with complications. We're going to split them into sections. Prenatal. There are situations that babies are born with birth defects that may or may not have been detected from the postnatal stage. For example, Down syndrome. Down syndrome can be detected before the baby is born. And on discovery, parents have the right to determine if they wish to proceed with the birth or not. Delivery. Many times we find that the hospitals have been negligent during delivery. But nothing is done about it because Nigeria is a sort of situation whereby parents are not open to discuss about things of delivery or negligence. Our electricity situation does not help as there are many times children are born prematurely, but they cannot survive due to the fact that the hospital is not well equipped to provide this delicate service. Postnatal. In most countries, developmental surveillance is the norm. This is a process that helps identify children born at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders. These services are not widely available in hospitals in Nigeria. So children that would normally have a fighting chance of proper development are left to fall through the cracks. Research has also shown that children born through IVF and multiple births have a high risk of having developmental concerns. Solution. Developmental surveillance is the best way to identify children that are born with developmental risks as some children actually develop and meet all developmental milestones, but at the age of two start to lose these developmental skills. This is a form of neurodevelopmental disorder called Child Disintegration Disorder, now also known as Autism Spectrum Disorder. Let us be a voice for our children and insist that the Federal Ministry of Health makes a compository for every hospital to have a developmental surveillance program so that every Nigerian child born would have the opportunity to be able to preserve and have the right to quality life despite the fact that they may have been born with several disabilities. This is the only way that we can provide a healthier and more resourceful nation where children are detected on time so that they can have the opportunity to have early intervention. Do you guys have children? No. Okay, so this is education for you guys expecting children. So what is your take on that? Yeah, my opinion, the awareness needs to, we need to intensify on the orientation because, you know, before now, before the advent of a blood group genotype, you know, all those stereotypes of saying in Yoruba land where they call it a biku, where people die and come back and stuff like that. But science has actually proven it that it is the genotype where you have people having SS and they die too. SS, syndromes and what have you and people believe that it's probably fetish or taboos. So in reality, if we have orientation, I believe we should be able to manage situations like this. Like you said, this is an education for me first. A lot of things that you mentioned are new to me as well. But I am aware of, and like you mentioned as well, I think awareness is important because someone like me who would pride myself to be an educated person has a limited knowledge in this. And really that's because maybe partly because I am yet to have a child. But I guess that even before one gets to have a child, such kind of education is important. You made mention of the fact that, I mean, what struck me was when you said that some children get developed up until the age of two and then afterwards begin to have Down syndrome. I was shocked by such because in my head, every parent would have thought, okay, once my child gets to a certain age, I think I'm good. I'm fine. So every of those necessary care that needs to have been done or monitoring that needs to have been done on that child or those children would not be done because they really are not aware that they should be done. So I think we need to begin to intensify these conversations and not just within a selected circle. It has to be both educated, non-educated, everybody that intends to have a child because like you mentioned, every child has a right to a good life. I tend to have a member of my family that is autistic, actually, yes, and looking at his development versus the development of every other person that was born at the same time he was born. It sort of saddens my heart because I realized that he really, it's not his fault. He didn't cause it, right? But he's had to suffer for something that he could not really do anything about. So every of his mates are, I mean, he would be 25 now. So every of his mates are doing well in life or people that, I mean, his circle of people are doing well in life for themselves, but he's still having to struggle. Sometimes at some point he even had some relapses and regressions, so it really affected him. And I also guess conversations around that as well needs to happen because some parents, once they have autistic children, really do not know what to do. So they just feel like, okay, maybe if I just pray, I mean, you can pray, no doubt. Or they just feel like, oh, if I just treat him well, I'll be fine. But really that's knowledge that's being there. You see, the thing about it is that we've had so many campaigns, campaigns for autism, campaigns for this, campaigns for that, but you see early intervention. You know, when you ask someone, what's early intervention? They said early intervention is the key. So what is the key? Eh, it's early intervention. But they fail to realize that early intervention is detection. Where you detect on time. You know, I've seen situations whereby children are detected from the cradle. And they do well. And we also have to appreciate the fact that people ask me, why is it so much? Why are we seeing so many children with developmental issues? I tell them that before mother nature naturally would expel these children on their own. They can naturally be expelled. But science has found a way to preserve them. So when you see a doctor say, oh, the child survived at 24 months, he said, yay, he survived. But science forgets to tell you that that child has developmental milestones that need to be achieved before you can say success. So you have a child that is alive but is not meeting what they need to meet. So it's really, really a matter of, as I said, education. So we thank you for your attention while the program lasted. We hope to have conversations resonated with you. 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