chatwithketch

Q: Good day Dr. Ketch, please my question is…what supplements can a nursing mother take to enable free flow of breast milk? Thanks

A: How can we help mum to establish or re-establish breastfeeding? To answer that I’ll reproduce part of a post I had made on this subject.

Mum needs loads of support from her medical team (be that the nurses that provide support for lactation or the doctor who does same). This support can range from teaching her how to latch baby on properly to the doctor prescribing medications that encourage milk production. Drugs and foods that encourage milk production are called galactogogues. A number of local foods have been touted to help eg Pap (akamu, ogi), green leafy veggies like spinach, oats, garlic and ginger, nuts like almonds etc Go ahead and try out what works for you.

Effective breastfeeding requires loads of patience. You have to…

Q: Hello Doctor, is coffee good
while breast-feeding?

A: Coffee and other
foods and drinks that contain caffeine should, definitely be avoided when
breastfeeding as much as possible. Caffeine in coffee energy drinks, some soft
drinks etc. This makes the baby irritable and by extension, makes sleep
difficult for the baby.

Other foods to avoid or limit their consumption while breast-feeding:

Alcohol: This should be avoided at all costs.

Cigarette (yeah, yeah, I know it’s not food) should also be avoided
as it reduces the production of breast milk.

If baby reacts to what the mother ate, efforts should be made to
pinpoint what the mother ate before the incident started and then eliminating
that from the diet to see if the diarrhea or allergy stops.

Make sure that you eat well: lots of fruits and vegetables and
complex carbohydrates. Cut out the junk that will not help you achieve…

Dear all, this week, August 1 to 7,
the world celebrates World Breastfeeding Week. This year, the
theme is, “Empower Parents, Enable Breastfeeding.”This theme
reminds me a lot of what I went through trying to find a hospital with a crèche
where I could work and breastfeed my baby comfortably at work. That was not to
be! Want to know all about it? Read below:

A few years ago when
I was pregnant for my first child, I made plans…loads of them. How great a
mother I was going to be, I would make packed lunches, make her hair, teach
her, school her, take her to work with me, (so I could exclusively breast
feed), take her to school by myself (when it was that time), pick her up too,
do her laundry by myself etc. I wanted to be super mum. All those statistics of
mothers who left their…

Q: Good day, ma’am. Please what is early cyesis in pregnancy?
A: Cyesis is medical lingo for pregnancy. So, early cyesis is Early Pregnancy 😀

Q: Dr please, what are the causes of swollen legs, prevention and what can one do if one notices it?
A: The causes of swollen legs are many and diverse ranging from liver and kidney diseases to pregnancy. Prevention is focused on the cause. For more on swollen legs, please click on this link:https://chatwithdrketch.com/2014/10/13/daily-health-tips-foot-swelling/

Q: Please Dr, I need your help. My little daughter of about 5yrs just started bringing out another tooth from the front gum apart from the normal teeth. Please is there any drug I can administer to stop that tooth from coming out? Thank you.
Children start losing their baby teeth from 5 to 7 years, but some could start the process earlier and some later 😀 In some cases, as…

Q: Dr. each time l return from work l look so unreasonably tired. What can I do?

A: I’m sure most people can identify with this. I’m assuming that beyond looking tired, you do feel tired too. That tiredness that appears to be a permanent fixture especially in a city like Lagos, Nigeria as we all attempt to out-run each other in the rat race 😀 In most instances where no specific medical ailment can be found, stress is the biggest culprit…what with multiple bills to pay, traffic, insurgency and terrorism etc

Other causes include:
• Psychological issues: Anxiety and depression
• Physical causes: Being under or overweight
• Lifestyle causes: Excessive alcohol abuse etc

To prevent this,
• Have a regular sleep routine and be sure that you have good sleep habits (no TVs in room, no work before bed time etc) and catch sufficient amounts of sleep daily.

Q: What drug can I use to control worm in my stomach? It disturbs me after eating. My stomach makes noise after eating.

A: Hey! Thanks for writing in.

How do you know your symptoms are due to worms? Was your stool (faeces) examined? It’s important that you visit the health facility to get a proper diagnosis so that appropriate treatment can be started.

Having said that, worms oftentimes do not present with any symptoms but sometimes people with this infestation complain of non-specific symptoms of the digestive system (like your complaint).

So, what is a worm (helminth) infection? There are different types. I will explain a couple.

A) Ascariasis – This is a type of roundworm infection and is one of the most common types of worm infections. This infection is spread when a person comes in contact with ascaris eggs in soil mixed with human feces or infected…

Q: Good evening Doc, I am 38 weeks pregnant. On my last ANC visit the doctor detected a trace of +1 protein in my urine and my blood pressure was high. Please ma’am what food and things can I do to reduce protein and high blood pressure?

A: A high blood pressure reading in pregnancy with protein in urine is a worrying situation. Blood pressure readings are interpreted as same, pregnancy or no pregnancy. Any level more than 140/90mmHg is seen as hypertensive. This of course has some slight changes with the new classification of high blood pressure. A woman may already be hypertensive before pregnancy and on medication. She may be found to be hypertensive before 20th week of pregnancy in which case it is believed she had previously undetected high blood pressure or she may be discovered to have high blood pressure after the 20th week, in which…

Q: What is the cause of enlargement of prostate?

A: The prostate gland is a small organ located just below the bladder. It produces semen and the urethra which transports urine from the bladder and semen from the prostate, passes through the prostate. This organ grows throughout a male’s life and sometimes grows so big that it blocks the flow of urine from the bladder. This condition is known as Benign Prostatic Enlargement or Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy or Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia. This is more likely to happen as people age and when there is a family history.

The symptoms of this include
•    Feeling like urinating very frequently
•    Feeling the need to urgently urinate
•    Not being able to start urinating immediately despite the urgency
•    Straining at urine
•    When the person does start urinating, the flow trickles
•    Feeling that the bladder was not completely emptied
•    Urinary…

Q: Hi, is there any problem when you are having sex and then the sperms came out with blood and then I bleed few drops of blood and then it stops? I was thinking I’m on periods but the bleeding stops. Is it normal or I’m pregnant?

A: Hi dear, thanks for writing in. It is certainly very disturbing to see blood in semen! This phenomenon, known as haematospermia or haemospermia in men under 40 years with no other symptoms related to more serious issues (which I shall discuss below) is usually not a major medical problem.

Causes include:·

Inflammation of the prostate gland (where semen is produced)·

Inflammation of the seminal vesicles (where most of the fluid in the semen is produced)·

Cysts in the seminal vesicles·

Sexually Transmitted Infections like gonorrhea, chlamydia etc·

Following recent instrumentation eg after prostatic biopsy

These conditions would usually resolve on their own…