Cerebral Palsy in Nigeria: One Woman’s Mission to Help Her Daughter and Others

Ms Nweke is not alone in her mission to dispel myths and improve care.

The Oscar Project, a charity focused on improving the diagnosis and treatment of neonatal jaundice, recently launched in Lagos.

The project is named after Oscar Anderson, a Vietnamese-born British disability advocate.

“We equip primary, secondary and tertiary health facilities with equipment to treat jaundice, primarily light boxes, but also detection and screening equipment,” Toyin Saraki, who oversees the launch, told the BBC.

Project Oscar, supported by consumer health firm Reckitt, is training 300 health workers in Lagos. The hope for the first year is to reach 10,000 mothers, screen 9,000 children and implement new protocols to prevent jaundiced babies from developing cerebral palsy.

In a country with an overstretched public health system, the government has praised the goals of the Oscar project, but said little about the disorder.

Doctors say that the treatment of neonatal jaundice is much cheaper than the cost of lifelong treatment.

First launched in Vietnam in 2019, Project Oscar has helped nearly 150,000 children in the Asian country.

Mr Anderson, 22, says he wants to prevent other children from going through what he went through.

“Disabled people should not be looked down upon,” she tells the BBC.

It works to ensure that every newborn baby is screened for neonatal jaundice, and with the support and courage of mothers, midwives and medical professionals, it enables better understanding and faster treatment.

However, achieving this is an ambitious goal in Africa’s most populous country, where thousands of babies are born with neonatal jaundice each year.

Nevertheless, Mr Anderson is determined to defy the odds.

“The work doesn’t stop until every baby is protected against neonatal jaundice,” she says.