Optometrist warn pregnant women against using harmful chemicals

Tema, June 17, CDA Consult - Dr. Alfred Gardemor a Principal Optometrist and Head of the Optometric Center at the Nsawam Government Hospital has cautioned: “If you are pregnant the chemical you apply gets to the baby, and anything that you take, because of the placenta, whatever the mother takes the baby will take due to that connection and that goes into the baby’s bloodstream”.

He cautioned pregnant women to avoid using chemicals that would be harmful to themselves and the babies in their wombs.

Dr. Gardemor, who is also the Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Optometric Association (GOA) also cautioned pregnant women from bleaching both the skin and hair as it has the potential to cause irreversible blindness to unborn babies.

He said such products contain certain chemicals that when absorbed into the body could go a long way to have effects on the unborn baby.

He mentioned that very high doses of chemicals contained in such products when engrossed into the skin could cause harm to both the pregnant woman and the unborn baby.

Dr Gardemor stated this at the fifth Ghana News Agency-Tema Regional Office and the Ghana Optometric Association fortnightly public sensitization initiative “GNA-GOA: My Eye! My Vision! Monitored by the Communication for Development and Advocacy Consult (CDA Consult) in Tema.

The fortnight initiative is a collaborative public education advocacy campaign to promote the need for people to access eye care and also to draw attention to vision health.

The GNA-GOA: My Eyes! My Vision! The initiative also seeks to challenge the public and policymakers to focus on vision as a health issue, which forms a critical component of mankind’s wellbeing but is often neglected.

Speaking on the topic; “Children’s Vision and Eye Health”, Dr. Gardemor explained that, pregnancy changed the hormone level and that could make the skin more sensitive than normal leading the skin to react easily to certain chemicals applied to the body.

The PRO indicated that chemicals in bleaching cosmetics could cause inflammation, scarring, and abnormalities among newborn babies if used during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

He noted that during the process of the hair being bleached, some of the harmful substances penetrate into the skin to the body and that could go a long way to affect the baby.

Dr. Gardemor said it could lead to premature babies, giving birth to babies with low birth weight, taking longer to conceive, and pregnancy loss among others.

He added that skin bleaching agents increase the susceptibility to infections and viruses making it easy for the skin to react.

Dr. Gardemor expressed concern that most eye infections among babies were usually not detected early and that led to major issues during the growth of the child.

Dr. Kwame Oben-Nyarko, Optometrist Third Eye Care and Vision Centre has stated that protecting the eyes from exposure to direct contact with several environmental factors which could be detrimental to your eyes.

He said the use of spectacles can also be used for the correction of several conditions including doubling of vision and latent and manifest deviations of the eyes.

Dr Oben-Nyarko stated speaking on: “Acquiring a pair of spectacles: What you need to know” explained that it may sound like an easy task but there are several factors that need to be considered before a spectacle is actually dispensed.

He identified some of the factors as professionals responsible for dispensing spectacles; places to acquire it; the processes involved; different spectacle options available depending on the unique needs of the individual and different types of materials used for making lenses and frames.

Others include the accessories for spectacles and the cleaning processes of spectacles.

Source: CDA Consult