An Ọgbanje
(strictly "Ọgbanje" and cannot be substituted with "Ọbanje", the "gb" forms a single consonant in Igbo language)
is a term for what was believed to be an evil spirit that would deliberately plague a family with misfortune. Its literal translation in the Igbo language is "children who come and go". It was believed that within a certain amount of time from birth (usually not past puberty), the Ọgbanje would deliberately die and then come back and repeat the cycle causing the family grief.
Ọgbanje has been popularized by the critically acclaimed book by Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart with the character Ezinma who was considered an Ọgbanje because she was the first of 10 children born to her mother that did not die in infancy.
As time passes science and technology have shown that there are health condition that may lead to this infant deaths such as SID's and Sickle Cell Disease etc but there are still some unknown to a greater number of people especially in Africa.
A simple mismatch of blood can cause miscarriages, stillbirth and infant death. An O negative woman with an O positive may find it difficult to have a baby considering the fact that the O positive man will introduce positive blood to the woman's blood system and her body will see it as a foreign invader and attack it somehow. This can be medically dealt with just a RhoGAM
RhoGAM, or Rho (D) Immune Globulin, is a sterile solution made from human blood plasma that is given to Rh-negative women in the form of an injection. Rh is a protein most people have in their blood, on the surfaces of red blood cells.
Someone who has this protein is said to be Rh positive, and someone who does not have it is Rh negative. Approximately 15 percent of the population is Rh negative, and of those, 15 percent are Caucasian, 5 – 8 percent are African American, and 1 – 2 percent are Asian or Native American.
Rh factor is not typically a health concern until pregnancy occurs or a blood transfusion is needed. Rh incompatibility is a mismatch between the blood of the mother and the blood of the fetus and occurs when the mother is Rh-negative and the fetus is Rh positive.
Why is RhoGAM Administered?
When Rh-negative blood is exposed to Rh-positive blood, the Rh negative blood responds by producing antibodies that attack and destroy the Rh-positive blood cells.
This can lead to problems such as fetal anaemia, which in turn can cause a life-threatening condition known as hydrops fetalis, which causes internal bleeding, heart and kidney failure, and shock.
Rh immunoglobulin prevents your immune system from attacking your baby’s blood.
How Does RhoGAM Work?
In a way, RhoGAM can be said to work almost like a vaccination. A vaccination introduces the body to a dosage of a virus that is too small to cause serious illness, which enables the body to learn to fight the virus effectively, thereby preventing serious illness in the future.
A RhoGAM shot contains antibodies to Rh-positive blood, but not enough of them to cause harm to the fetal bloodstream.
The mother’s body detects these antibodies, and reacts as though the immune system had already taken action against the “foreign” Rh-positive red blood cells. Because the mother’s immune system never reacts to the fetal blood, she never becomes “sensitized” to it.
So just a simple administration of at least one dose of RhoGAM Ultra-Filtered PLUS between 26 and 28 weeks of pregnancy by your doctor. If your baby is found to be Rh-positive at birth, you will receive an additional dose within 72 hours after delivery. Will free your child from “Ọgbanje”.
Thanks for reading,
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