REVEALED: How day care centers kill children slowly

Many caregivers in Nigeria often administer sleeping drugs and other sedatives to children in their care. But experts warn that sedating children can affect their vital organs and cause them permanent damage or death

“ If the kids become too much to handle, slip them a little cold medicine,” goes a routine joke among mothers, who want to take a break and possibly rest from the ‘chaos’ created by very active children.Ironically, this brandished joke is being put to action in most day care centres and crèches across the country. Of late, the number of infants in crèches has increased astronomically, with most people attributing the trend to the demand thrown up by the society at homes and the need for survival.

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Though, seldom discussed, drugging of children with sleeping pills, cough or cold syrup is an act that most parents know goes on behind the walls of day care centres. But for them, in spite of all that, the day care centre is not just a “necessary evil,” it is a necessity.
Of late, the use of sedatives on infants in crèche has become a troubling issue for parents. Sedatives are compounds that cause physiological and mental slowing of the body. In recent years, a number of infants have died at the hands of day care providers, with some of the deaths attributed to the use of over-the-counter medicines to quiet cranky babies without their parents’ permission.
Mrs. Idowu Martins (not real name) received the shock of her life when she decided to take her very vibrant daughter to a day care centre close to her home.
“She would be drugged. Kamsi is too active. It’s better you get someone to take care of her at home,” was the candid advice she got from a family friend who works in the at the centre.
Mrs. Chinonye Okonkwo was not that lucky. Even though she was able to detect on time that her son was being medicated and immediately withdrew him from the day care centre, she still wishes there is something she could do to put a stop to the dastardly act.
Recounting her experience, she noted that each time she went to the crèche to pick her son after the day’s work, she would meet him sleeping. Mrs. Okonkwo recalled that on the day she discovered that her son was being sedated, she went to pick him up, but met him sleeping.
“When we got home, he continued sleeping and refused to be breastfed. Each time I tried to wake him up, he would slump and sleep off. My son slept from 6.pm that evening till 5.am the next morning. He was so weak. It was then someone told me that he must have been drugged. I just decided to allow the sleeping dog to lie and didn’t bother going back there,” she said.
But the family of Pius Okafor was not that lucky. For them, the controversial death of their only son, Christopher Akachukwu, in a crèche was a blow too many for the family. Seeing his lifeless body literally halted their world and they are yet to recover from the shock.
The arrival of Akachukwu through a Caesarean Section (CS) on November 10, 2011, threw the family into joy, especially being the first boy after three female children.
Just like other children, he was enrolled into a nearby private school, owned by a very popular Pentecostal church in Lagos, alongside his other siblings. But on June 8, 2012, at seven-month-old, Akachukwu, who was earlier taken to school hale and hearty, was confirmed dead.
According to a medical report from the hospital where he was taken, “the complaint from his care-giver was that the baby was closing his eyes unusually, as he was being fed his lunch. Examination revealed a well-nourished male infant, who was obviously lifeless on getting to the hospital at the time. There were no breathing moments, no pulses felt, no heart sounds were heard and the pupils were dilated and unresponsive to light. He was certified dead by attending doctor as a ‘Brought-In-Dead’ (BID).”
However, the report of the toxicology test carried out on the dead child in LUTH, and signed by a pathologist, certified the cause of the death to be severe cerebral edema due to marked anemia and toxicology evidence of Diazepam in body fluid.
Diazepam is a tranquilizing drug used to reduce anxiety and tension and is a muscle relaxant and sedative.
To the Okafors, the medical and toxicology report was, no doubt, a staunch confirmation of the widespread rumour that most crèches use sedatives on the children put under their care.
Though still shrouded in mystery, the death of another infant, nine-month-old Osezua Emmanuel, has pitted the parents against the management of a crèche in Ajao Estate, Lagos. According to reports, the infant, who was described as vivacious, was in top shape when he was dropped off at school. The parents were later called and told that their son was critically ill and had been rushed to a nearby hospital. On getting to the hospital, they were shown the lifeless body of their son at the emergency ward.
Till date, whatever transpired behind the walls of the school is still left to imagination, as the staff of the school have remained secretive about the whole affair.
Recently, medical experts, in a bid to get a clear picture of malicious drug and alcoholic poisoning of children, especially those under seven years of age, and the fatal consequences of the practice in the United States of America, for example, analysed data from the National Poison Data System and found that an average of 160 cases of intentional drug abuse in children, including two deaths, are recorded each year.
The researchers, writing in the Journal of Pediatrics, said the most common medications administered without prescription were painkillers, alcohol, sedatives, sleeping pills, anti-psychotics, cough or cold medications.
The researchers speculated that the motives behind the practice of medicating kids is perhaps, for care-givers or baby sitters to have the infants sleep to avoid tantrums and ease their own workload.
According to a medical practitioner, Mrs. Obiamaka Osita-Ede, anytime a child is given a medication for any other purpose other than for what it’s explicitly prescribed for, the child run the risk of being harmed.
She warned that exposing children to medicines that they do not need could overtime affect immature organs of the body, adding that the danger inherent is that when eventually, the medication is medically necessary, they may no longer be effective.
Speaking further, Mrs. Osita-Ede said, “Sedative medications, whether for cough or any other treatment have no place in day care. Infants need to awake easily to protect themselves from dangers like choking when they spit up. The sedative interferes with that natural waking mechanism.”
According to a medical journal, the minor side effects of sedation include nausea, vomiting, mild allergic reactions, headache, dizziness and restlessness. The more serious adverse effects of sedative medications are slowed breathing, decrease in blood pressure or abnormal heart rate and rhythm. These adverse effects, it noted, however, are fortunately rare.
Speaking on the implication of drugging infants, a pharmacist and managing director of Sabiz Nigeria Limited, Damian Izuka, warned that sleeping pills must not be administered to a child less than two years.
“It shouldn’t even be administered to children less than six years. It is banned on them and anyone that does that must be prosecuted. These type of drugs changes the chemical composition of the brain.”
He explained that some of the sedatives belong to a larger family of drugs known as phenothiazine, noting that what a person set out to achieve determines the type that is administered. He disclosed that the most common thing the drugs can do to children is to depress their respiratory system, adding that once a respiratory system is in a depressed state, the heart does not function optimally to take care of the body the way it should.
“While some wear out immediately, others might take longer or eventually lead to death. If you look at what a sleeping pill does to an adult, you can then imagine what it can do to a child. When an adult uses such drugs, he is warned not to operate a machine. Putting this in mind and then administering it to a child is then not good.”
Mr. Izuka disclosed that a child’s body weight is calculated to determine the dose of drugs to be administered, adding that if there is need to administer any sleeping syrup at all, it must be done by an expert.
“Those that indulge in the act of drugging infants do it for selfish reasons. Possibility can’t be ruled out that at day care centre that has over 30 babies to one caregiver can indulge in the act to make management easier or to reduce the workload. I, however, believe that crèches should be able to put a ceiling on the number of children they can handle at a time.”
Mr. Izuka lamented that it is very difficult in Nigeria to draw a line between prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs. This he attributed to the country’s value system, which he regretted doesn’t really place premium on human lives. He also decried the fact that no form of check or control is carried out on drugs, adding that this allows people to get away with certain acts.
“People have free access to drugs which is very unfortunate. Those licensed to sell drugs are insignificant in number to the unlicensed ones. The system is too loose. The enforcement system, when it comes to drugs circulation in Nigeria can be better than it is now. The healthcare sector needs to be repackaged.”
For Dr. Chukwurah Augustine, a general medical practitioner, since medicines are poisons, he declared, under no condition should anybody, be it a child or an adult, take a medicine that is not prescribed.
“Whoever dispenses a drug to a child without prescription has committed an abuse. Children are not supposed to be given any medicine except it was recommended and for medicinal purposes. A day care operator is not trained to administer medicines. The only person trained to administer any medicines is a nurse. It is supposed to be recommended by a medical doctor while it is dispensed by a pharmacist.”
Abolanle Kayode, a biochemist at the department of Chemical Sciences, Bells University of Technology, Otta, stressed that sleeping pills, especially melatonin should only be used temporarily and when necessary under a doctor’s supervision. He also warned that long-term use or abuse of it like that used by caregivers for preschool children may have serious impact on the systems in the body that govern puberty related changes.
“There is also the potential risk of delayed development for children who have taken it for a long time,” he warned.
However, Dr. Ijeoma Nwobi, a paediatrician says there are ways to tell if a child has being sedated. According to her, sedative medications last in the system a long time.
Said she: “If your child is sleeping too much and not eating a lot, these could be signs that there are medications in his or her system. If you visit your child’s day care at a time that they are not expecting you, you may check to see if the baby is difficult to arouse or the baby is not really eating. But most times, you might not see anything to give them away. These people are good at it. It is necessary for every mother to be very detailed about her child and be able to tell if there is any form of change.”

-Osun Defender

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