The book on : The Ghanaian custom of massaging a baby’s head with hot water and ointments;
The damage to the baby’s brain development.
Introduction.
The practice of massaging the head of a newborn baby with a towel dipped in hot water during the bath and rubbing Robb ointment on the head of the baby after the bath is widespread all over Ghana, and even amongst Ghanaians living abroad, and other tribes in Africa.
We do hot water massage to the heads and bodies of our newborn babies because:
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We believe that the head of a baby is made of one whole bone, therefore it breaks and cracks under the pressure of the delivery.
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The baby's joints are weak and sometime are not straight.
We believe that the treatment of hot water is beneficial because of the following reasons:
1.We believe that the heat heals the wounds and holes in the baby’s head.
2.We shape the head of the baby because the pressure in the delivery can change the shape of the head and it is not a nice shape of a head.
3.The joints in the baby’s body are weak and they need to be straightened with hot water.
4. Above all, we are much concern about the "Breathing place" (Picture 1) because it is big, and it vibrates as if air passes there. And if so, the baby can catch cold or other sickness. We put the hot water on the head in order to close the “Breathing place” quickly and heal the wounds inside the baby’s head .
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Technology in medical field shows us today that the belief that the head of a baby is made of one whole bone is not the fact, but rather the head of a baby is made of many bones from its creation.
Before we should go in details to the structure of the baby's head, we should ask ourselves the following:
Picture 1: The "Breathing place" or as it commonly worldwide called the soft spot (Anterior Fontanelle).
Question:
Is it possible that the creator of the world creates such complicated world that work in harmony and when he came to the creation of human being, he made a mistake with the baby's skull causing all babies in the world to be born with gaps, holes and wounds in their head?
Answer:
No! The creator of the world did not make a mistake. It is we the human being that do not know the reason why there are gaps and hole such as the "Breathing place" in the baby's head.
We are going to learn why the baby's head is made of many bones and gaps in the following pages.