Jumoke is 24 years old, a banker,
11 months ago, she got married to her secondary school boyfriend Dele who is an
engineer. Although, they once did an abortion when they were undergrads, Jumoke
is now 8 months pregnant and a healthy mom; but the doctor says, there is something
wrong with the baby’s blood…
Eunice is 35 years old and in her
second marriage. She had one son in her first marriage, before she lost her
husband in a plane crash. Her new husband, Nnamdi loves her son but also wants
kids of his own, yet Eunice has had 3 kids who all died within days to weeks due to anaemia. Her new
in-laws says she should go for deliverance, that she has offended a witch who
is drinking her babies’ blood. Luckily, she just met a doctor, who says he knows
what’s truly going on…
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What Eunice and Jumoke’s doctors
have noticed is that these babies are suffering from RH disease a major cause of haemolytic disease of the newborn (HDN). RH
disease is a condition that affects almost all the newborns of women who are RH
–ve and married to an RH +ve husband.
How can you know if you are RH –ve or RH+ve?
It is very simple. When you do a
blood group test, the results will tell you if you are A+, A-, B+, B-, O+,
O-, AB+ or AB-. If there is a –
(negative sign) behind your blood group and you are a woman who intends to have
children, then you really need this information. If you’re a RH-ve man, you don’t need
to worry about RH disease, but because you can pass the blood factor on to your
daughters, you should definitely be informed. RH negative people have been
rumored to have more disease resistance than RH +ve people eg. Some studies say
they have lower HIV infection rates, so it’s really not a bad thing to be
RH-ve.
I’m a RH-ve woman, but why should I be concerned?
Rhesus –ve people aren’t very
many and so there’s a high chance you will marry a man who is RH+ve (If he’s
RH-ve like you, no problem). When this happens, your baby is also very likely
to be RH+ve. During your pregnancy, (usually by the late second-third
trimester), your baby’s blood can escape into your blood stream, this is
normal. However, when an RH-ve woman’s blood detects this RH factor in the
RH+ve baby’s blood, it treats it like a foreign body and sends this signal to
mummy’s immune system “Alarm alarm ,
intruder detected, attack and destroy intruder a.s.a.p”. But because the
RH-ve woman’s immune system has never seen this 'kain' blood before, it doesn’t
respond quickly and Baby number 1 always makes it out unhurt eg. Eunice’s only
living child. Sadly, subsequent babies born by these mothers who are RH +ve are
not so lucky.
When a second RH+ baby arrives in the
womb and the mother’s blood detects the RH factor, the immune response this
time is quick: “Intruder detected,
attack now” and her antibodies sweep into the babies blood and begin to
slice and destroy them. By the time such babies are born, they are usually
severely anaemic as most of their red blood cells have been destroyed. Most
times, attempting to transfuse the baby does not help, as the mother’s
antibodies are already inside the child and continue the red blood cell attack.
Most of these babies will die.
What about Dele and Jumoke who have not had any children before?
For the young couple, although
they haven’t had a child yet, but when they did an abortion back in their
university days, they did not realise that the first child had activated the
immune response in Jumoke. Now, their new pregnancy is getting attacked by
the already developed antibodies and their baby will have haemolytic (RH) disease.
Are you a RH negative woman (A-, B-, O- or AB-)? And you want to know
how to prevent this “one-child syndrome” from affecting you or maybe you’re
affected and want to know if there’s treatment? Then look out for my follow up post:
Choosing BLOOD over LOVE 3.
Meanwhile read about another blood condition that can affect
newborns in my previous post: Choosing blood over Love 1
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