CRYPTIC PREGNANCY FRAUD; CAN TECHNOLOGY CURB THE TIDE?

by Adeyinka Adenikinju

When you look at a pair of words with different meanings depending on the geographical location, “cryptic pregnancy” would not have been one of those pairs you would have thought to see. However, the pair of words have come to have not only dual meanings but in Nigeria, the meaning represents a sinister situation that needs to be exposed and stopped at all costs.

Now let us state some definitions to help us in this expose; universally, cryptic pregnancy, also called a stealth pregnancy or a denied pregnancy, is one in which a person does not know they are pregnant until about halfway through pregnancy or even up until labor or birth. How possible is this? Well, there are a lot of instances where occurrence can be possible.

Cryptic pregnancy can occur if pregnancy symptoms do not present themselves or are not noticed, so in these cases, the pregnant woman experiences the common pregnancy symptoms in a mild, denied, or attribute the symptom to another cause. The belief that they cannot be pregnant or the denial of it like instances of nursing mothers being pregnant, a woman in menopause, or using birth control pills not to become pregnant. Mental health and other medical conditions can also increase the risk of occurrence in women. These women may experience symptoms like; Slight weight gain, constipation , spotting, swollen, tender breasts, bloating, frequent urination, vomiting, nausea, and cramping.

It must be said though that this is an exceedingly rare type of pregnancy, 1 in 475 pregnancies go undetected or unnoticed until the 20-week oWr five-month mark. One in 2,500 pregnancies goes unrecognized until a person goes into labor (Jenkins, Millar, & Robins, 2011).

Our focus in this article is the misleading meaning or circumstances around “cryptic pregnancy” in Nigeria where it is used to refer to false pregnancy by WWfraudulent individuals who manipulate women with infertility conditions (ONYINYECHI & NGOZI, n.d.).

These women are deceived by deceitful midwives, doctors, or quacks who extort them financially. The abundance of “baby factories” a term for places where women are paid to be impregnated and deliver babies who would later be sold, contributes to the successful operations of these unscrupulous healthcare workers who sometimes in connivance with the women in need of babies to call their own.

The connivance with the women is much needed in some cases as the delivery is mostly staged-managed. It gets worse in some instances, as some babies are stolen at birth by their unsuspecting mothers who are later told their babies died during delivery. This in its own sense lies another sensitive area of concern “Infant abduction”

But most of the women were clearly deceived throughout the whole stage of pregnancy. They make them pregnant by injecting them with estrogens to make them feel pregnant and prompt physical changessymptoms associated with pregnancy, all without their knowledge.

These women are then told that their uterus is covering the baby, so that is why an ultrasound, or any other tests would be unable to pick up traces of the child. When it is time for delivery, the women are “delivered” by C-Section, where another child is presented to them as theirs, without their knowledge (Nwokolo, 2020).

Most of these women are unable to breastfeed, which would deprive the babies of the muchneeded breast milk, another concern will be the effect of the hormones given to these women to make them feel pregnant or present with pregnancy symptoms which could lead to cancer.

It is worth noting that newborns are now more susceptible to being abducted given to the fact that after delivery, hospitals are increasingly moving away from the use of nurseries in favor of keeping infants in the room with the mother following birth. This is beneficial for parental bonding and other added benefits, but this also means newborns are more vulnerable as they spend most of their time in an area that is easier to gain access to and where a potential stranger impersonating hospital staff is more likely to go undetected. So, it is not surprising to see that reflect when The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) reported in 2008 that in the past 25 years, 252 newborns were abducted in the USA. Alarmingly, almost half of it – 123 cases – took place in an obstetric or pediatric setting.

Why the fuss? Well, in Nigeria, women who are desperately trying to conceive are willing to suppress the pressure of society or appease family pressure, or worse still deceive their husbands, go the extra mile which could include visiting spiritualists, religious houses, miracle centers, buying babies from unscrupulous midwives and their cohorts.

Imagine the trauma and the mental health implication of a mother whose baby has been stolen during childbirth (infant abduction); which is also a thing of worry in Uganda and some other countries, or a father finding out that the paternity of his child is being contested after several years …. Damaging, worse off are the health facilities where these atrocities take place and they come with the barrage of bad publicity, litigations, and the likes.

Various concerned parties have suggested precautionary steps to prevent infant abduction and limit the excesses of those involved in cryptic pregnancy and paternity fraud.

Education on these precautionary steps and the nefarious and lucrative ring of players involved in cryptic pregnancies and paternity fraud, the acceptance of adopted babies into Nigerian societies (or countries with attached interest to babies) as well as Technology, would go a long way in curbing this unpalatable phenomenon (Adepoju, 2015).

Technology’s role in disrupting this phenomenon

With Technology infant abduction can be reduced or eliminated using Radio Frequency Identification or RFID.