Public Agenda (Accra)
Kwaku Baah-Achemfour
10 December 2007
Cape Coast — Cape Coast Township was last Saturday converted into a classroom setting when Ghana Organization on Fetal Alcoholic Syndrome (GOFAS) organized a three day seminar to sensitize pregnant women on the dangers associated with the intake of alcohol on their health and the unborn babies.
Speaking to Public Agenda in Cape Coast, the Chief Executive Officer of the group, Mrs. Amanorbea Opoku-Boakye explained that the seminars were organized in Accra and Cape Coast due to their research findings that revealed that many pregnant women continue to rub shoulders with men in the drinking bars with dire consequences on their unborn babies.
Mrs. Opoku-Boakye explained that the idea of setting up the organization started in 2003 during her father's funeral. She explained that at the funeral she saw a number of pregnant women gulping alcohol like water and when she interrogated them she found the women did not know the negative effect of alcohol on their health of and the unborn baby.
She stressed that what she saw caused her to come down from the United States to help fight that "ignorant disease."
She exclaimed that most of the problems the nation face in the educational sector, especially with students poor academic performance cannot only be attributed to teachers non-performance but that most children are suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome. She advised that since the effect of brain damage is irreversible but could be prevented, not only pregnant women but any woman planning to have a baby should refrain from the act of taking in alcohol. "Even some 9 to 10 years children we have noticed tend to look like 6 years old children "she added.
She therefore called on all to help in the campaign of sensitizing women on the dangers of alcohol so that our nation would be spared the risk of having abnormal children.
She explained that the sensitization programme was made to coincide with the World's Aids Day since when women take in alcohol they lose their consciousness and become vulnerable to men who take advantage of them.
Mr. Natheniel Ebo Nsarko, Consultant to Mrs. Opoku-Boakye also appealed to government to cause the Brewery industries to put labels on the bottles of the alcoholic drinks just as they have done on cigarettes to warn users of the danger of alcohol to your health. He added that indeed the inscription "Alcohol intake could be dangerous to the health of the unborn baby and the mother" should be enforced by law.
In his view, the brewery industries use a certain chemical called tetratogen which he said could be very dangerous to pregnant women's health, especially to the fetus of the unborn baby
He explained that the earlier the industries started to sensitize pregnant women on the dangers of alcohol intake, the better for the nation.
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