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Malnutrition and Fetal Development
There are also a number of serious fetial developmental problems caused by malnutrition. Recent medical research has proven, for example that “5 and 20% of African women have a low BMI as a result of chronic hunger” (Lartey 105-108). This low BMI is a condition that permanently damages fetial organ development. Chronic hunger and malnutrition also causes anemia in both pregnant mothers and their newborn babies. “Across the continent the prevalence of anaemia ranges from 21 to 80%, with similarly high values for both vitamin A and Zn deficiency levels” (Lartey 105-108). Even for countries of the developing world, these percentages are very high. Anaemia and vitamin deficiency prohibit fetial development and ultimately, limits the newborn child’s ability to survive. The mother’s lack of education magnifies the seriousness of these deficiencies. Uneducated women engage in unhealthy activities especially during the term of their pregnancy (Bain et al).
Newborn infants of malnourished mothers during are susceptible to iodine deficiencies. (Mothers and the children in Sub-Saharan Africa have the highest iodine deficiency of all the developing countries (Smith 3).) As a consequence, “Forty-three percent of the region’s people, including the same percentage of school-age children, suffer from iodine deficiency, the primary cause of preventable mental retardation in children” (Smith). This awful circumstance affects the growth of the child’s brain, its development, and limits information-processing abilities. In addition, iodine deficiency is a major cause of mental retardation. Without proper medical care, a repetitive cycle of unhealthy newborn infants and malnourished mothers repeats itself (Smith).
In addition, one third of preschool children have a dietary issue of vitamin A. This vitamin deficiency affects visual processing, nerve development, immune system, and reproduction (Smith 3). The fact that one-third of all preschool children share a deficiency is dreadful and decreases the chance of healthy normal growth. The affected children remain unable to perform many activities. Eventually, incapable of providing productive service to the economy or society, they will be further burden a society balanced on the edge of starvation. It is expected that those malnutrition diseases listed above, and others as well, will be responsible for half of the deaths in Saharan Africa by 2030 (DPhil and Crampin et al 208-222). For those who do survive, health problems further inhibiting all areas of social and economic productivity will make life a painful struggle.
Eventually, decades of malnourished people creates shortages of the able-bodied workers, those capable of laboring in fields and harvesting food (DPhil and Crampin et al 208-222). This shortage of farm labor is magnified by the large percent of the healthy who move to urban centers in the hope of finding a way of life farming cannot promise. Yet, sustainable agriculture presupposes a permanent rural population of active and experienced farmers. The shortage of farmers is just another of the many problems of sustainable food supply and the approaching crisis of scarcity in Sub Saharan Africa.
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