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Past Research into the bath of Ghanaian babies.

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1. One of the early reports on this issue was written in 1988 for the Regional UNICEF Workshop held in Cote d'Ivoire. The report title was: ‘Toward a Strategy for Enhancing Early Childhood Development in the West and Central Africa Region’. The report introduced the custom of massaging the body of a baby with hot water among Baule tribe that belongs to the Akan people in Côte d'Ivoire. The Akan people are one of the largest groups in Côte d'Ivoire and in Ghana as well.  Here is a quotation from the report. 

“From the first day of life, a child is given a bath twice a day…. The infant is scrubbed vigorously, using hot water…. The head is especially well scrubbed….. Little attempt is made to calm the screaming child……. After the bath, the baby is massaged, his hips and shoulders manipulated and stretched, and his head pressed and molded. He is then rubbed with creams and powders”.

The report considers this vigorous bath as a very stimulating bath and even possibly contributing to the early psychomotor development among African children as compared to "norms" established by the study of European-American children [6].

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2. In Ghana this traditional bath is also similarly practiced. From research on newborn baby illnesses in Ghana in 2012, comes the following description:

“Grandmother begins by checking the temperature of the water.  Hot.  She dips in the cloth and squeezes the water onto the baby’s head while massaging it with the cloth.  The infant begins to wail in discomfort.  She pauses for a moment and points her finger to one particular spot on the baby’s head (at the fontanel), telling the mother in the room “this part is very soft”.  It seems to give her all the more reason to concentrate much of the pressure applied to the infant’s head on that area.  I ask how old the child is.  Forty days old.  After spending a little less than ten minutes on the head, Grandmother then massages the rest of the body”.

No additional comments were given on this practice.

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These two resources gave very general information on the practice of massaging the head of a baby with hot water, and no additional comment on the heat of the water or any negative aspect was raised in the reports by the researchers.

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3. In 2006 Yael Dzamesi submitted her thesis for her Doctorate degree to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem [8]. The thesis dealt with the reasons for having this indigenous practice of massaging the head of a baby that starts from the first day of life of a newborn baby (as reported in the previous research that was done in Côte d'Ivoire) until the baby is 3 or 6 months old. Three hundred and thirty people (men and women, ages 20 to 80 years old) from different urban and rural areas in Ghana were interviewed. The main reason observed in the research was that the people believe that hot water closes the fontanelles (soft spots or gaps) and sutures (cracks) in the head of a baby earlier than the time the natural process takes, which is up to one and a half year. The people explained that it was done in order to prevent cold air entering the head through the fontanelles and the sutures and causes illness inside the head. The people perceive these soft spots and cracks in the skull of a baby as a fault of nature or an accident that occurred during a delivery of a baby. The other reason dealt with beautification and strength of the head: It is believed that the massage with hot water molds the shape of the head of a baby and strengths the bones of a skull [8].

This information indicates the following:

  1. The Ghanaians lack scientific information on a skull development of a newborn baby.

  2.  There is the possibility that the skull of a baby may be closed early than the natural process, because of the hot water massage.

  3. Application of the hot water on the head of a baby can lead to hyperthermia (overheat) that can damage the brain development of a baby.

However, different reasons delayed the continuation of farther research until it was possible to conduct a detailed observation into the practice of newborn Ghanaian babies in 2017. For definition of hyperthermia see "Discussion of results" page.

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