Nigeria’s Kidnap stories are becoming more theatrical.
It began with bandits and terrorists overrunning harmless peasants’ communities in the dead of the night, burning houses, shooting from AK-47 rifles, and returning to the forests from where they came with scores of men, women and children as spoils of war. Now, previously unheard of self kidnaps have joined the theatrics. School children are hidden somewhere by their friends who telephone the “victims” parents that their children have been kidnapped.
We heard of a pastor who similarly deceived his congregation. Wives or husbands too play this game.
The most recent is the story of Mrs. Raheemat Lateef.She lived in Abeokuta, was pregnant, left home to attend an antenatal clinic somewhere in town, later telephoned home that she had been kidnapped, making her husband call the police immediately, but only for her to be found in Ilorin, 249.5km kilometers away, in the home of her father, who has come up with another story that she fled from home because, as it had become characteristic of her in pregnancy, she had another miscarriage.
Many persons who heard the first story of Mrs. Raheemat Lateef may not forgive her for raising their blood pressure or creating an atmosphere that could do so. I think that was a silly thing to do. When will it not be known that she was with her father? I have no problem ignoring her antic, especially as the motive was not to make money through false pretence. I hope no one developed high blood pressure at the thought that the kidnapping of a pregnant woman on the way to hospital portends darker days ahead for security in Nigeria. As told by her father, the problem Mrs Raheemat Lateef has with “habitual miscarriage,” as the condition is described, may have a relationship with such challenges as an incompetent cervix, hormonal imbalance, and magnesium deficiency, among other problems.
Read Also: Beyond Steez: Ogun’s paradox of grandeur, deathly roads
The father told the police about his daughter’s departure from home in Abeokuta and surfacing in Ilorin. She had been having miscarriages and did not know how to explain the latest one to her husband. It’s possible these miscarriages had been agonising their marriage, and this one could be the last straw that may break the camel’s back. I witnessed such a case a few years ago. I saw a woman from England who was in Nigeria to see her doctors at the Lagos University Teaching Hospitals (LUTH) again over fertility questions that were disturbing her marriage. Women should count themselves lucky who can naturally get pregnant and keep the baby to term. This woman is a friend to a woman in England who regularly reads this column. We met at the instance of this other woman. She was weeping, and she was saying her husband gave her this last consultation with her doctors as the last hope for their marriage. In other words, if a pregnancy did not clock to term, they were as good as no longer married! I recall a case similar to hers in which the quivering of nerves caused by magnesium deficiency caused no fewer than five pregnancy losses in a row.
There were other cases in which hormonal imbalances caused the placenta to not grow properly, and the fetuses had to come down. One of the few things I recalled advising this woman from England to try was a panty liner. In those days, we did not have the Quantum Energy panty liner to address subnormal health in the vagina, cervix, uterus, tubes, and ovaries. We did not also have then the lady’s Quantum Energy boxer, both of which are now available in the market. Nevertheless, this woman returned to England, hopeful. A few weeks later, she did not associate her nausea and vomiting experiences with pregnancy. I advised her when she called me to run a laboratory test. The result was positive, and she was advised to go off work to avoid stress this time around. Now, this woman is a proud mother of twins. Thanks, Funke, for plastering a person’s life with joy. My prayer is that joy will ever abound in your soul as well.
Incompetent Cervix. This is a major cause of spontaneous abortion, which is the abortion that occurs on its own. In my high school biology class, our teacher gave us a graphic architecture of the female reproductive system. He likened the vagina, cervix, and uterus to three rooms, one of which opened to the next through a door. The vagina is the outermost or “sitting room,” where sexual intercourse occurs. The cervix and uterus are “Madam’s bedroom” and “Master bedroom,” respectively, connected by a door through which deposited sperm travel inward. I like to mention one of the encounters of some women with the cervix. It is called sperm reflux and is anti-fertility. In this regard, the cervix is a defender of the uterus against infective agents from the vagina.It forms a thick mucus barrier door at the entrance between the cervix and uterus. This mucus is often thicker than the mucus during ovulation. With this thick mucoid wall, semen cannot penetrate the uterus. So, sperm and semen keep flowing back the way they came through in reflux. For some women, the reflux is immediate, right in bed, before all sexual disengagement. For others, it may take a while, long after the woman may have been back on her feet, believing all is well. Yoruba folklore therapists call it EDA (d:d) “pouring”.
Orthodox medicine treats this condition with antibiotics. Natural medicines also uses natural antibiotics in food medicines and mucus thinners. This condition is not the only factor inhibiting reproduction outside of an incompetent cervix. The shape and positioning of the uterus and cervix are important for stress-free reproduction. The anteverted uterus is the natural, healthy positioning of the uterus. The retroverted positioning makes matters difficult. Either positioning defines the inclination towards certain other structures in the pelvic region. In a retroverted uterus, sperm cannot easily enter the uterus from the cervix, even when the passage from the cervix is free. There may also be challenges with a prolapsed uterus. This is a fallen uterus that has lost tone in the muscles that hold it in its own compartment. Failing, it encroaches into the cervix and may even make an appearance in the vagina. It may weaken the enthusiasm of sexual partners, if not embarrass them.
In the treatment of these conditions, little attention is given to the Second Energy Chakra (see the internet, please) or assistance with Quantum Energy support, such as the female version of the Quantum Energy boxer. Recently, it was reported that a quantum Energy protocol involving the use of Quantum phototherapy Telomerase Activation machine reduce the seize uterine fibroids in a patient from 10.5cm to 5cm in four weeks. The trouble for many women who would like to own or avail themselves of the help of this machine is that it cost about 2.2 million for one and about 50 thousand Naira per section of one hour in the Therapist clinic. This machine is not for uterine fibroids therapy alone. It has no fewer than nine applications. Women who cannot afford it for uterine fibroids often go for the female version of the quantum energy boxer.
We are back to some of the factors which inhabit reproduction, but not yet incompetent cervix. Often, we hear of blames heaped on prior surgical protocols and multiple births. I do not think this blame holds much water. It may do with women with poor nutrition but not in every or many cases of multiple births. I wonder why Mrs. Grace Edet James of Akwa Ibom State experienced none of these conditions, although she bore nine children. I also wonder why my maternal great grandmother, Okuronke Olunaike, bore one set of twins and one set of triplets without much ado before her husband passed. Reproduction problems have become the bane of Nigerian modern women.
When the cervix is “incompetent” or insufficient, it cannot support the growth of a baby in the womb to a full term of 36 or 37 weeks. Somewhere around the middle of pregnancy, it gives way. I would like to introduce a second imagery, that of a “concrete slab,” in a storey building similar to the “connecting door” I borrowed from my high school biology teacher. In pregnancy, the structural support the cervix offers the uterus is like a concrete slab. If we live in a multi-storey building, we should know that a concrete slab suspends us from the ground floor.
The uterus is like a second floor, the cervix a first floor, and the vagina the ground floor. The baby is growing in the “second floor” (the uterus), supported by the muscular “slab” of the cervix. If this muscular sheet gives way, the baby will come down pre-term, about half-matured, probably unviable. Sometimes, the baby may have died in the uterus, warranting nature to expel it right away. In some cases, a short or insufficient cervix can be attributed to hormonal problems. The primary hormonal actors are estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen has three forms, E1, E2, and E3, which should exist in a specific ratio to progesterone. Sometimes, the estrogen ratio is normal, but progesterone levels are low and need to be supplemented with pharmaceutical progesterone by a gyneacologist or through plant medicines.
When human estrogen is too harsh, the liver breaks it down, and the bile and dietary fiber export it out of the body through stool. In this case, phytoestrogen substitutes are used. This consideration led to the development of plant medicines like Phyto Estrogen from Tasly and Gynocare from Milnapath Millennium Nature Pathway. In hospital protocols, a woman diagnosed with an incompetent cervix may undergo a surgical procedure called cerclage, also known as surrogical stitches. This procedure is like sewing a torn dress. A woman who undergoes this procedure must have the stitches removed before her baby is born, otherwise the baby may find the natural pathway from the uterus blocked. Natural medicine has a similar procedure, which involves scraping, upward, the bark of a certain tree with an empty snail shell, cooking it, and giving it to the woman to eat. This guarantees full-term development for the baby whose mother had been troubled by an incompetent cervix. However, the traditional procedure has limitations. What happens if the tree is no longer readily available when the baby is about to be born, or if the therapist has passed away? This question is relevant because the therapeutic procedure needs to be reversed for the baby to be born through the natural process. The bark of the tree needs to be scrapped in a downward motion, cooked, and given to the expectant mother to eat. The trouble with Nigerian traditional medicine (NTM) is the lack of specialisation, clinical experiments, and plantation farming. There are few growers of medicinal plants, factory processors, producers, merchants, and laboratory experiments. Why can’t this tree be grown in plantations, harvested, and put through a research process?
Why must agriculture be tailored towards producing only food crops to the neglect of NEW USES OF AGRICULTURE, of which plant medine is one? HORMONAL IMBALANCE I previously mentioned hormonal imbalance in relation to estrogen and progesterone, as well as phytoestrogen and gynocare. There are various proprietary plant medicines available to balance hormones. Before proceeding, I would like to mention herbs like Vitex, Black cohosh, Ashwaghanda, Peruvian Macca, Donquai, Ashoka, and Red Raspberry leaves, which support fertility, along with minerals like zinc. Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Selenium, and similar nutrients also play crucial roles.
To nourish a woman’s entire body for the demanding task of reproduction, I recommend a proprietary blend of approximately 80 nutrients called Daily Build. Unfortunately, we no longer have access to Spectra Greens, Spectra Reds, and Spectra Blues, which provided a wide range of nutrients for complete or near-complete nutrition for the average adult human body’s 100 trillion cells or so cells. In the 1980s, I encountered a challenging case where a woman experienced three consecutive miscarriages after a normal birth, all within the first four months of pregnancy.
Gyneacologists suggested progesterone deficiency, as the cervix was competent. At the time, I was unaware of the importance of zinc, a fertility mineral, and reproductive system herbs. However, during a holiday to the United States in the late 1980s, I learned about the benefits of Vitex, Black cohosh, Red raspberry leaves, and shepherd’s purse from a pharmacologist who had successfully used them to overcome three miscarriages with his wife. I applied this knowledge to the stubborn case I was handling, and it yielded remarkable results. Vitex: In several studies, Vitex has been shown to support fertility in women. It helps to address Pre-menstrual Syndrome (PMS). This is a condition in which the body may blot with fluid, and the breast may enlarge, become tender, sore and painful to touch. Sometimes, fluid may drip from the nipples, especially when there is too much estrogen vis-a-vis progesterone. If prolactin, a hormone, is what drips out of the nipples, the ovaries may have been shut down and ovulation will not take place.
Without ovulation, pregnancy cannot occur. This excess condition of prolactin is called hyperprolectinemia. Luckily for women affected by it, Vitex helps to normalise prolactin levels. This may not be surprising because hyper prolectinemia follows excess estrogen or estrogenation and Vitex balances estrogen. In normal circumstances, it is prolactin that the brain sends as a messanger hormone to the ovaries with a chemical message that they should stop producing eggs when a pregnancy has been established.This is why a pregnant woman is not pregnant during a pregnancy.
When a woman is not pregnant and prolactin floods her system, she cannot get pregnant because her ovaries would have been shut down. Luckily for women, still, Vitex helps to prevent or to reverse menopausal symptoms. Young women, in particular, should not forsake vitex, because they consume alot of sugar and this unbalances their hormones. Black cohosh: Ameri-Indian women were the custodian of black cohosh before Western researchers discovered it. They use this herb for all sort of female trouble, especially those if the reproduction system. Black Coshos us estrogenic, but it does not affect some parts of the body while it affects others. It tends to help to re-establish menstruation in menstruating women whose period disappear especially when it is combined with Vitex or Donquai, another herb for women. In a study of 244 menopausal women challenged with uterine fibroids, 40mg of black cohosh every day was reported to decrease benign tumor by as much as 30 percent. Other studies of black cohosh and menopausal problems suggest that it’s improves hit flashes, sleep disorder, anxiety and mental stamina especially in combination with Vitex and other female herbs. In the 1990s, I had a good laugh at a greedy woman in her late 20s who was so frighten that her period slowed down and disappeared for months that she insisted on combining black cohosh with Vitex and two other hormonal supplements, one of which was PHYTO ESTROGEN from TASLY. When the period return, it was as though a kitchen tap was permanently turn on to rush. Magnesium Connection Just as progesterone balances estrogen, magnesium balances calcium.
Excessive calcium can cause nerve agitation and tremors, which can be debilitating. Many people worldwide are magnesium deficient. I know of a young woman in Shomolu, Lagos, who became productive after taking magnesium supplements after five miscarriages due to an incompetent cervix. Another woman developed still hands after childbirth, which magnesium therapy helped alleviate. She had been unable to sleep and looked old and tired. I didn’t recognise her until Mrs. Bukola Aseeze, CEO of Budget Travels, reminded me of her story. Mrs Raheemat Lateef who had suffered multiple miscarriages must have been traumatised, fled to her father’s comfort zone. Her husband should show understanding and compassion, as marriage is a partnership through life’s ups and downs. Having babies is not the sole purpose of existence. Everyone should seek to discover the purpose of earthly existence and what, especially, brought him or her here. What value is there in having many children if we ultimately separate from them and our spouse, only to realise our life’s task was undone and we must return to re-learn and to re-perform it?
