I have always heard people say that two people planning to get married should have a blood test to determine if any of them has the gene to cause sickle cell disease or if any of them actually has sickle cell disease. It is a right thing to do. A laudable effort, considering the ergonomical predisposition of our present dispensation. It is a good decision to know their statuses and thereafter decide, with a mutual understanding, if they will sever the relationship or continue with it.

But what happens to those children who have sickle cell disease and who are born to parents who have no initial idea (before their entry into marriage) that they both possess the genes that have ended up in the bringing forth of a child having the sickle cell disease. And that is what I intend to deal with today.

Newborn babies with the sickle cell condition do not have the manifestations of the conditions until four-to-six months onwards. After these months, they start to manifest the symptoms of the disease (though in very subtle ways) through frequent anemia, body pains (what we call crisis) through excessive crying, symptoms similar or resembling that of asphyxia, excessive irritation and uncomfortability and other distresses that is uncharacteristic of the babies, among others. The very critical issue is that whilst it is relatively easy for an adult with the sickle cell condition to tell which part of his or her body is aching in instances of crisis, a child of six to one year (and even beyond) cannot tell or even locate the exact spot of a pain or any symptom. And this stage in caring for a child requires lot and lodes of attention to minute detail, faint body signals being given by the child and most importantly, a parent should engage the services of a competent health delivery facility. In the hospitals, several tests are available to test a baby (at age six months and beyond) as to whether it has the disease or not. And when it is recognized to have the condition, appropriate counseling and care mechanisms are put in place to ensure that the baby does not suffer unnecessarily which could even result in death. I always say that having sickle cell disease is not fatal, but having the disease without any iota of knowledge of it is deadly.

Parents, should therefore, engage the services of the right health facility and professionals and pay very special and unusual attention to that child with the condition and with God on your side, I will vouch with a dint of surety, that he or she will grow to become an important person, just like any other person without the condition. And always remember, having sickle cell disease is not fatal, but having the disease without any iota of knowledge of it is deadly.