Parents and caregivers have been cautioned against force-feeding children, a practice that health professionals say can lead to serious complications and, in severe cases, death.

The warning follows concerns over children being admitted to the Rebecca Akufo-Addo Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital with complications associated with force-feeding.

A paediatrician at the unit, Dr Amanda Fofie, told The Mirror in an interview in Accra last week that the facility had, over a period of about two years, seen several children with complications resulting from force-feeding.

The practice, she said, prompted the “Protect My Little Lungs” campaign to educate parents and caregivers about its dangers.

“We started this stop force-feeding campaign, ‘Protect My Little Lungs’, about two years ago because we noticed that over the span of about two years, we saw a lot of children who had come in with complications of being force-fed.

“If you have a child who’s not eating much, the best thing you can do is to bring the child to the hospital because a lot of the time, the weight of the child is actually normal,” she said.

She explained that the desire to have plump-looking children could sometimes lead parents to force them to eat, despite the potential dangers.

“Ghanaian mothers want to see more plump children, which in itself is not very healthy. And so we try to advise them to stop force-feeding.”

She said parents should not panic if a child ate only small quantities, stressing that children could take small amounts of food and drinks throughout the day.
“There’s no child who will not eat for a whole day. Even if the child takes just a few spoons, that’s fine,” she said.

Dr Fofie advised parents to seek medical attention if they were concerned about a child’s poor appetite rather than forcing the child to eat.

A nurse at the unit, Stephanie Appiah, also cautioned parents and grandparents against giving children palm oil or milk after they accidentally ingest substances such as cleaning products.

She said forcing palm oil into a child’s mouth could result in the substance entering the lungs and causing severe complications.

“It also goes into their lungs, and then it causes very, very bad effects that we don’t want to see because we’ve lost a great number of children because of this. Even those who survive live with neurological challenges.”

She said when children ingest harmful substances, the first action should be to rush them to the nearest health facility.

“Protect My Little Lungs” campaign
Last Friday, the Rebecca Akufo-Addo PICU, with support from the Child Critical Care Foundation, climaxed the month-long “Protect My Little Lungs"—Aspiration Pneumonia Awareness Campaign with a community awareness float.