The House of Representatives has urged the Federal Government to adopt monitoring and evaluation mechanisms on the consequences of cryptic pregnancies which lead to health challenges and eventual loss of life.
The House urged the Ministries of Health and Women Affairs to give directives to the relevant authorities to commence public enlightenment campaign at the grassroots to achieve the desired results while mandating its Committees on Healthcare Services and Women Affairs to invite the ministers and investigate the trend of cryptic pregnancies.
These resolutions were sequel to the unanimous adoption of a motion titled, ‘Need to Investigate the Implication of Cryptic Pregnancies in Nigeria,’ as moved by a member of the House, Ikenna Elezieanya.
Moving the motion, Elezieanya explained that cryptic pregnancy is a slow-growing pregnancy caused by insufficient hormones, which consequently takes a long time for the foetus to mature after a long while.
Elezieanya said, “However, there is a trend that has pervaded the Nigerian space where women are falsely pronounced pregnant by persons who impersonate themselves as doctors and nurses refer to this fraud as cryptic pregnancy.”
Elezieanya said, “In Nigeria, many families are lured and fall victims to this fraudulent activity in the quest to have children. Women are injected with hormones of pregnancy and while these women parade themselves as being pregnant, no pregnancy is detected in the ultrasound.
“The House is worried these scammers inject women with hormones to boost pregnancy, which has adverse effects on the adrenal gland and eventually leads to kidney failure.
“The House is also worried that women are sometimes sedated and operated on, or given an episiotomy, and thereafter the scammers bring arranged babies. Several desperate women who have gone through this process ended up in perpetual sorrow due to the adverse effects of the drugs, which damage the female reproductive sense organs, thus killing some women that have underlying ailments in the process.”
The lawmaker stated that since the core mandate of the government was to protect the lives and properties of its citizens, the government should carry out a public enlightenment campaign from the grassroots on the danger and consequences of cryptic pregnancies.
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