Watching babies or toddlers being fed is almost scary. Am sure many will relate that the habit of feeding babies forcefully sends chills down the spine. They are almost strangled as mothers force porridge or soft food down the gut to ensure maximum nutrition intake. This is done because most babies are fussy eaters and mothers will do anything within their powers to nourish them. Some babies end up vomiting the food to reject it because its forced down their throats. But because they are helpless, they will be forced to ingest it all over again in the name of ‘helping them grow healthily’.
Many mothers, including me, are guilty of this method. But is this always the right way to go about it? Is pinning babies down and forcing food down their tiny throats ideal?
Looking back at this, I wonder how most of us survived the Armageddon of food forcibly fed to us. I saw a picture making rounds recently about a baby’s mouth blocked by his mother’s hand, filled with porridge more his tiny mouth could accommodate. The woman left the hand there while chatting with friends, but ensuring the contents of her hand disappeared into the baby’s stomach. Before long, she scooped more and repeated the process. The picture was caption; “If you survived this, you can survive anything,”
This king of feeding reminds me about a torture method called water boarding. Wikipedia.org describes waterboarding as a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilised captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboarding, the captive’s face is covered with cloth or some other thin material and immobilized on their back at an incline of 10 to 20 degrees. Torturers pour water onto the face over the breathing passages, causing an almost immediate gag reflex and creating a drowning sensation for the captive. Normally, water is poured intermittently to prevent death.
While mothers mean well, unlike in water boarding, the poor babies have no say and put up with similar scenario at each feed. Almost every mother wants a plump baby as a sign of good health and food rejection is never acceptable. Please, let us consider those poor and helpless babies who speak to having enough by their vomits and loud wails. Forcing them to eat can be hazardous and give opposite effect than the intended one
