Child Welfare Day in Tafo

This week as part of Technical Training we all went to New Tafo Government Hospital. We were divided into 3 groups and we each went to different event. My group got to participate in the most hands on event of the 3. We went to a child welfare day outside of the hospital. The other 2 groups went to see the hospital administration and disease control/family planning. Our event wasn’t at the hospital so we had to drive to a smaller clinic just a few minutes away. At 830am there were already a lot of mothers waiting with their babies. The head nurse spoke with us for a few minutes to explain what Child Welfare Day is and what would be happening throughout the event. Basically, Child Welfare Day is a day where mothers, and preferably fathers as well, bring their babies (at this particular clinic, up to 5 years old) to be weighed and vaccinated. Each child had a booklet with their name and basic information, as well as a growth chart to record their weights. As the mothers came in, they handed the booklet to the nurse at the weighing station so they could be called up for their turn. We all gathered around to watch as the nurse explained the booklets and how to chart a baby’s weight. The babies were weighed with a scale that hung from the roof. Each child had a potato sack looking thing that they wore to get weighed. All of their clothes were removed (except their waist beads of course) and then they were placed in this little cloth bag with leg holes. The bag has a handle that is hung on the hook of the scale. So basically the babies are hanging from the scale in cloth bags. It is entertaining to watch because the babies always make funny faces as they try to understand why they are swinging around. Some don’t mind it but others cry a lot. The nurses were careful to point out to us babies that were healthy and babies that were underweight. It didn’t happen here, but apparently at some of these events whenever there is an underweight baby a nurse has no problem making the mother feel bad about not having a healthy baby. Usually they will speak loud enough so that the other mothers can hear the one particular mother being reprimanded. In Ghana appearances are everything, so no one wants to be publicly embarrassed about anything, which is why the nurses use this tactic to try to get the mothers to feed their children better. If every time they come to the clinic a fuss is made about their underweight baby they will eventually make changes to improve the health of that child – at least that is the idea, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The nurses also stress exclusive breastfeeding for at least the first 6 months after birth. Some mothers, apparently, will breastfeed at events like this or when they are not at home, but when they are home and there is other food present, they will give young babies pretty much anything around and those tend to be the underweight babies. Throughout the weighing we started to notice that whenever both the mother and father came, they went to the front of the weighing line. When we asked the nurse she said they did this to encourage the other mothers to bring their baby daddy. A lot of women come on their own because in Ghana it is usually the mother that takes care of the children – more so than the father because they are working or at farm. So the nurses really try to stress that parenting is a two-person job.

The parents were pretty open about passing off their babies to us oburonis. They would give us the children and let us hang them from the scale and afterwards we got to hold a couple of them while the parents were occupied with something. So we all got our fill of cute baby holding. One of the fathers passed me his little girl, Geraldine, and she was so tiny! I was surprised he didn’t mind me holding her. I can’t imagine many parents in America letting a stranger hold their brand new baby and then walk away! But she was the most well behaved baby there. She never cried and was always smiling. She eventually fell asleep in my arms and I think I about died. I wanted to put her in my backpack and bring her home but I decided against it.