Don’t assume babies’ stools are harmless, paediatrician tells mothers;
•Health risks of improper handling of babies’ stool.
A Consultant Paediatric Haematologist and Oncologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, Prof. Edamisan Temiye, has asked mothers to dispel the notion that babies’ stool is harmless.
The paediatrician stated that some mothers have the misconception that babies’ stool is harmless and therefore do not properly dispose it of, while some do not wash their hands after changing their babies’ diapers.
Temiye warned that poorly disposed of baby’s stool could lead to infections such as diarrhoea and hepatitis A.
According to the paediatrician, no stool whether a child or adult is harmless, warning that hepatitis A could lead to liver failure.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with PUNCH HealthWise, the child health expert said diarrhoea is one of the greatest causes of death in children and is top of the five causes of death in children.
The don said, “No stool is harmless and every stool should be disposed of appropriately in the sewage system.
“No stool is harmless, none at all. Babies’ stools are not harmless. It is a misconception. The moment a baby is born, the baby starts interacting with all the microorganisms in the environment, including the ones from the mother and the mother’s stool, the father’s stool, and the community’s stool.
“In communities where babies’ stool is not disposed of appropriately, the adults when they use the toilet, don’t wash their hands and when they touch and serve food , they spread the impact to children.
“That is one of the reasons diarrhoea disease is one of the most common causes of death in children under five because those germs come back and the child who has low immunity could have diarrhoea.
“So, babies’ stool is not harmless. Diarrhoea is one of the greatest causes of death in children and is top of the five causes of death in children.”
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, diarrhoea remains a leading killer of young children.
“Diarrhoea is a leading killer of children, accounting for approximately nine per cent of all deaths among children under age five worldwide in 2019. This translates to over 1,300 young children dying each day, or about 484,000 children a year, despite the availability of a simple treatment solution”, UNICEF said.
Temiye further said disposing of babies’ stool inappropriately could also lead to other killer infections besides diarrhoea.
“Other infections can be transferred through stool like typhoid disease, amoeba which may even cause liver problems. They can transmit hepatitis A, especially through stool. Children do get hepatitis A as a result of poorly disposed of stool and their parents do not wash their hands before they feed them.
“When anybody has hepatitis A, the risk involved is that it can cause the liver to shut down completely and the person can die from liver failure,” he explained.
He noted that poorly disposed of stool could also lead to worm infestation in children, which he said might result in malnutrition.
“The child will develop malnutrition because the worm, a parasite, is consuming the food that the child should be consuming. Children are not supposed to have worms in their intestines”, he added.
The paediatrician urged every mother to maintain good hygiene.
He advised that every stool should be properly disposed of whether of a baby or an adult.
He also counsels mothers to wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water before touching anything after using the toilet and before feeding their babies.
In a 2022 article published in the PubMed Central journal titled, ‘Hygienic Child Faeces Disposal Practice and Its Associated Factors among Mothers/Caregivers of Under Five Children in West Armachiho District, Northwest Ethiopia’, the researchers said children’s faeces are five times more dangerous than that of adults.
They noted that unhygienic disposal of child faeces has been reported as one of the major sanitation problems in Sub-Saharan African countries.
The researchers said, ” So far, no country’s sanitation initiatives have paid much attention to children’s faeces, and in many nations, newborn babies and children’s stools are regarded as harmless and not dirty.
” Surprisingly, most sanitation programmes focus on household sanitation and ignore children’s stool disposal practices.
“People, especially children, are more likely to come into close contact with fecal pathogens when faeces are left out in the open.
” Because they play on the ground and put their hands near their faces and into their mouths, children are more likely to be exposed to fecal-oral infections. Fecal-oral infections can induce diarrhoeal illnesses, which can lead to stunting.”
