I was on a public transport recently, and a beautiful young woman was sitting beside me with her four-month-old baby. The baby looked so adorable and beautiful, everyone was touching and making comments on the baby’s looks. I noticed two to three persons on the bus had kissed this baby on the cheek or hands. I was expecting the mother to stop strangers from kissing her baby, but instead, she smiled happily at those people. After looking at her for sometimes, I realized she felt the kissing was a show of love and admiration for her baby.
And this scenario took me back to what happened in our estate years ago.
When I had my first child, Ebube, everyone was dropping in and out of my house to see the newborn baby. I have different batches of people coming to see the baby, even people I hardly speak to also came to see my little Ebube. As a first-time mother, I was so happy about this constant attention my baby was getting. Most of them kiss the baby on the mouth, cheeks and some other part of his body. I saw this behaviour as a sign of love and admiration because I wasn’t cognizant of my baby’s health.
At four months, my baby was diagnosed with RVF and HSV1, and we were kept on admission for two weeks. Before our discharge, Doctor Deji had urged me to prevent people from bringing their mouth/breath closer to my baby.
“Mrs Ebere, I need you to stop people from bringing their mouth/breath closer to your baby’s face, hands, and feet. That will lower his chances of getting infected with respiratory syncytial virus(RSV) and herpes simplex virus(HSV) again.” Dr Deji had cautioned me sternly.
“Doctor, how do I tell people not to kiss or touch my baby? I sounded so worried and confused.
“I understand everyone likes to hold, kiss and cuddle babies, and no one can blame them. Strangers getting close to your child is super dangerous. A baby doesn’t have the immune system of an adult, an adult carrying a virus that doesn’t affect them at all can pass it on to a baby through touching or kissing, and these make a child seriously ill.” He tries to explicate more on it to make me understand better.
“If you have not been stopping people, now is the time to remind anyone who has contact with your child to avoid being too touchy and definitely not to kiss him. This will be a little difficult, especially when it comes to your immediate family. But you have to do it for your child’s safety.” He sounded so concerned for my little Ebube.
When I left the hospital that day, I made up my mind to stop people from kissing or even touching my baby. The decision was simple, but enforcing it created a lot of enmity between me and love ones.
Whenever neighbours and friends in my estate comes around to see the baby, I try to distance the baby away from them. Most of my neighbours started saying I was calling them witches and wizard by distancing my baby away from them. I had to bear all the name-calling that comes with it.
I had neighbors that, the more I distance my baby from them, the more they kiss and touch him. Mama chioma was one of those neighbours who were bent on not listening to me. Whenever she comes into my house, she goes straight to carry the baby. She doesn’t just carry him, she always kisses and brings him closer to her mouth. At some point, I felt she was purposely doing it because she knew I had warned everyone not to do that.
One fateful day, she repeated this same act, so I was forced to shout at her and drag my baby from her.
“Stop shouting at me, I have children too. It’s not like I don’t have any, stop doing shakara with your baby.” She said, hissing and walking out of the house.
Ever since then, they all stopped coming to my house. I often hear them calling me different mocking names just to make me talk back at them. I didn’t really bother myself about them because, I was doing everything for my son’s safety.
We all need to know that newborn are born with developing immune systems that have to work hard to keep their tiny bodies from fighting off diseases and infection. Within the first few months of life, babies are at their most vulnerable stage.
Though the soft and fluffy cheeks may be tempting, remember to pause and think about the risks of kissing the infant.
You can help mothers prevent their babies from HSV1 and RSV by not kissing or touching newborn or infant constantly.
– Daniel Philip Edino.
300 Level, Mass Communication Department,
Prince Abubakar Audu University (PAAU) Anyigba, Kogi State.
