Science casts ray of hope on the childless
Medical scientific efforts are right now trending in that direction in the United Kingdom and with the United States of America, raring to go for the project that stands to put ear-to- ear smiles on the glum faces of women around the globe who clearly yearn for a suckling baby or one, in the case of Africa, strapped on its mother’s back, sleeping cosily and even waiting not to its mother’s chagrin but rather, to her delight.
“MADAM, here is your testtube baby.” This exciting new development may become a reality sooner rather than later, providence smiling on those now dying to nurse their own gift from God.
Medical scientific efforts are right now trending in that direction in the United Kingdom and with the United States of America, raring to go for the project that stands to put ear-to- ear smiles on the glum faces of women around the globe who clearly yearn for a suckling baby or one, in the case of Africa, strapped on its mother’s back, sleeping cosily and even waiting not to its mother’s chagrin but rather, to her delight.
Medical doctors in the UK have been working tirelessly to grow or develop eggs in the womb of barren or childless women to reach an embryonic stage and introduce the sperm to fertilise the egg, according to international Press reports from both the UK and the US which reportedly now wants to embark on the same project.
In their unflinching determination to end the infertility that has stigmatised many a childless woman, the medical gurus are apparently buoyed by their successful laboratory headway so far and by the knowledge that with faith in God’s mercies on unfortunate human beings, nothing is impossible under the sun.
And so, it is also with an unflinching intrepidity against odds in this canal world that a certain man in America now lives and works using arms donated from a dead person after losing his own limbs.
Press reports say that the recipient looks at the elbow and says “this is from a dead person”, but remains undeterred to live his life as he wishes so that the whole thing has now become “my norm”.
What the above also demonstrates is that scientific knowledge is increasingly achieving its goal of improving the lot of the human beings by delving into uncharted waters.
Heart transplants probably go a long way in explaining the utilitarian nature of scientific knowledge, so that those gifted men and women go the whole hog in making nonsense of otherwise unassailable odds to make life liveable while planet earth remains intact.
For instance, who would have believed that a failing engine of life, the heart, could be discarded and replaced with a fresh new energetic heart to give humanity a longer lifespan?
But there it happened, not beyond the many waters, but right here in Africa and next door to Zimbabwe in South Africa.
It was there in the then apartheid-ruled African country that a cardiac surgeon, Dr Christiaan Barnard, performed the first heart transplant in the world at Groote Schwaar Hospital in Cape Town.
After that medical scoop by the pioneer surgeon, heart transplants have become as normal as replacing a defective pump with a new one so that the procedure has become a norm across the globe.
And come to think of this: who would ever surmise that a kangaroo, native to Australia, could teach humanity how to care for its young in a life-threatening situation?
But there again, and here in our motherland kangaroo baby mother care has become a norm, saving the lives of premature born babies at risk of losing their lives.
Credulous or doubting Thomases need only pay a casual visit to any major hospital, especially in the Metropolises to marvel at the transfer of kangaroo technology to mothers in maternity wards who would otherwise have lost their premature babies soon after birth.
Kangaroo mother baby care requires that a premature baby is kept warm on the mother’s chest to prevent it from dying from cold, while at the same time the mother ensures that the baby’s oxygen intake remains uninterrupted.
Before the kangaroo mother care methodology came into effect around the globe, many mothers lost babies born prematurely due to inadequate medical staff to keep an eagle’s eye on the prematures until they were out of danger.
In the same way as the kangaroo has put a smile on many a mother’s face, the laboratory research on growing eggs in childless women should, when it succeeds in its objective, end the sorrows of many a childless woman by boosting fertility in them and ending criminal habits developing in some of the unfortunate women.
It is no exaggeration for this pen to suggest, for instance that cases of barren women snatching babies from mothers in maternity wards or offering to help travelling mothers by caring for their babies at bus stops, for instance and then stealing the babies is common in this country and probably in other countries as well.
What is needed now is for medical scientists or doctors in this country to remain aloof and in constant contact with medical research in the developed world so our people may also reap rewards of post-modern scientific knowledge to make our world a better place to live.
Nothing is impossible with our loving God’s mercy which encompasses even the most hideous sins.
Which means that concerted efforts at ending poverty which blights millions as well as improving the lives of people living with disabilities, should be the big trender today in the world, instead of political leaders jockeying for greater political power and spending trillions of dollars to acquire superior nuclear capability, the latter posing a threat to the lives of innocent human beings across the globe.