Anthonia Ogoko didn’t feel anything particularly wrong with her sixth pregnancy. It was to be her last, she had decided. When the pains started, she knew something was wrong.
“My babies died inside me before” Ogoko remembers, looking back on memories of distress in the final stages of her pregnancy. “They were twins.” She has stopped having children, but that singular loss has never left her.

In the last 15 years, the number of mothers dying from pregnancy-related causes and children dying in the first 28 days of life has been sliding - but not the number of children losing their lives before they are born.
Last year, an estimated 313,700 infants were stillborn across the country, according to a new series on stillbirths published by Lancet last week. Only India, with 592,100 stillbirths, surpassed Nigeria among 10 countries with the highest stillbirth rates.
Among them, the 10 countries - including Pakistan, China, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Bangladesh, Indonesia, Tanzania and Niger - account for two out of every three stillbirths in the world, according to the Lancet study. And there were some 2.6 million stillbirths last year. A global push hopes by 2030, stillbirth rates around the world could fall to just 12 or less per 1000 births.
Some 56 countries, many of them in Africa, will need to at least double present progress in the reduction of stillbirths - which are highest in conflict and emergency areas, noted the study.
The details are in the data, if Nigeria is to accelerate progress toward the “12.” At present, stillbirth numbers are “unacceptably high,” said Dr. Segun Adeoye, programme manager at the Society for Gynaecology and Obstetrics of Nigeria (SOGON).
Despite interim and long-term data, the dearth of quality data has prompted introduction of maternal death review - a no-blame inquiry into any death of any pregnant woman in Nigeria.
At present, the review has been altered to include surveillance and response to baby deaths immediately before and after birth - any death from about 20th week of pregnancy to four weeks after birth.
The review is being piloted in Abuja and Lagos, and will give “more precise and accurate data on why mothers and babies are dying,” said Adeoye. “In all facilities and communities, we will know exactly why they are dying and it will inform decision makers on actions to take,” he added. “The action might not necessarily be something big, it might be just ensuring health workers are at their duty posts.”
Only two out of every three children in the world have a birth certificate, and stillbirths even less, but experts believe it is a “missed opportunity” for better data.
“Stillbirths often go unrecorded, let alone lead to counselling,” said Toyin Saraki, founder of Wellbeing Foundation Africa. She lost one of her twin children and has blamed failures in public healthcare - and then gone on start Wellbeing, which works to improve reproductive, maternal; newly-born, child and adolescent health.
She also co-authored the third report in the Lancet Series, titled ‘Stillbirths: Economic and psychosocial consequences.’
“I was fighting for one life and bewildered how to mourn the other life… People did not know whether to congratulate or commiserate with me,” Saraki remarked.
At least two-thirds of births are in hospitals, but 1.3 million children died during labour last year, according to the report. Dooshima Ochefa’s [not her real name] baby was one - it presented with its foot and, egged on by her birth attendants, she continued to push. Distressed, her baby died, still tucked in her womb.
Margaret Hassan had taken herbal remedies prescribed by her traditional birth attendant and going into labour was extra pain.
“She was tired,” Chinomso Ibe remembers as a midwife. “We listened, and the baby was gone. We had to induce her to deliver the baby.”
Ibe has gone on to start Traffina Foundation, which encourages women to attend antenatal clinics and give birth in hospital, al

I fell in love with this guy but at first we didn’t take our relationship serious because we were still young and also time and space wouldn’t let us be, so we decided to go for studies as time passes by even then we still had hope that we would meet and start from where we had stopped. Somehow along the way we lost communication and lost hope so we both got new lovers.

so I fell into a relationship with this other guy thinking he was too serious with me because everything he did was quick, before I knew what I was already introduced to his mother sister and brother. I got so excited about it and put all my hopes on this guy. He wasn’t that rich and his family was so humble compared to mine but he still kept saying they had a lot of wealth but didn’t want to show it because they have enemies that envy them, despite the fact that i knew he was lying all I cared was being in love with him.

He used to have a lot of problems every time I was with him, he was thinking a lot about his daughter from his ex girlfriend. He always needed money for his daughter’s treatment, money to pay his rent and so on, seeing him unhappy would disturb me a lot to the extent that I decided to always lie to my parents to get money to solve his problems. Even when I didn’t get it from my parents I would sell my clothes, shoes and jewelries to make him happy even though I had never seen him buying me anything. I reached a point where I had nothing else to sell and my parents had become strict on me because they noticed I asked a lot of money every time and when he saw I was silent about getting him money, he started selling my assets like laptops, and every expensive garget I had until he couldn’t sell any other thing of mine.

It was at that time that I discovered he had never needed me in his life. All he needed was money and assets and when I was left with nothing he saw no reason to be with me. He started cheating on me to the extent that I got to know that for all that while he was still in love with his ex after all they had what bound them together and so the only option I was left with was to quit in pain and regret. Regretting the time i wasted with him and all his lies to get money out of me.

I tried dating other guys but I would breakup with them within a day or two so I decided to give myself space and time not until I found him, him that i fell in love with in my childhood, him that we left our spirits burning. I felt that day was a blessing I never expected yet it was right facing me so it became so easy for us to connect because I thought we knew each other all we were waiting for was to be together. We had fun together, we were madly in love as I thought not until things started changing out of the blue. My dream boy started getting weird, he found me disgusting for no reason, he started getting angry when I did even the slightest mistake. I got so confused with him and I felt so bad him getting mad at me without any reason, I kept on insisting on him to tell me what I had done wrong not until he confessed to me that his life had turned into a mess because he made a girl pregnant yet he wasn’t interested in her. He told me he was scared of loosing me because of what he had done to me because he loved me and cant stand being without me. It hurt me at first but I became patient with him, I was so supportive to him even when he requested to put our relationship on hold to sort out his mess I accepted because he said the girl had been pregnant without his conscience and all we prayed was for her to give birth and separate but troubles came in when he said the girls parents wanted a forceful marriage.

Lucky enough the girl got a miscarriage and I thought everything was sorted out because after all he didn’t want the girl or the pregnancy because that would even be an extra burden to him, he had a son but I got so shocked when he told me he loved both of us and that he couldn’t let any of us go yet when the other girl was pregnant he always

Seven suspected cultists, said to be terrorizing Ijora Badia and its environs in Lagos, have been arrested during initiation by officers of the Lagos State Police.
But some of the suspects identified as Nora Benson, 18; Monday Dennis, 21; James Francis, 31 and Jeremiah Okereke, 21, denied the allegation.
The police claimed they carried out the arrest following the directives of the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Fatia Owoseni, to rid the state of cultists and cult-related activities which have claimed the lives of several innocent persons in recent times, in the state.
One of the suspects, 18-year-old mother of one, Nora Benson, said she was attending a friend’s   party when she was arrested.
She said: “I live in Lekki but I used to worked in Ikoyi  before I fell sick and went for operation. It was not up to three weeks I came back.   I have a two-year-old son but I am not yet married.
“My friend, Blessing, invited me to a party. Everyone goes to parties even in a church we go for parties. I don’t know where she is now.   She left with her boyfriend three hours before I was arrested at the venue of the party. I don’t know the address of the place because I have not been there before.”
Talking about the tattoo on her skin, Nora, who is from Cross River State, adding she got the tattoo when she went to play football in Egypt. “I drew it on my hand when my colleagues were drawing tattoo. I played with Ultimate Queens. I left my son inside the house at about 6pm when I was going out.  I thought I would spend about an hour.
“So, I thought I was going to spend less than an hour at the place. I was troubled when I didn’t see Blessing who invited me. I decided to find my way out of the party venue so that I can go back home before the vigilante got me.”
Referring to the colour of clothes she was wearing, Nora said the red and white was not the dress code of the party.
She said: “I just decided to dress like this and I don’t know why these other people are dressed like me. I have told the police that I don’t have anybody around because I just packed into the compound about three weeks ago. I rented the apartment immediately I came from my village to seek greener pastures. I left my home town because the father of my child could not take care of me and my baby.  He keeps fighting me, using cutlass to attack me. Instead of me to die with my child, I had to leave.”
Another suspect, Monday Dennis also denied being a member of any gang, adding that the police refused to release them as they could not bribe them.
“My friend popularly called Million, invited me to a party at Ijora Badia. We were drinking at about 10pm, when members of a vigilante group arrested us and took us to the station.
“Some of us who had money have been released on bail while they transferred those that could not pay to SARS. It is one Yetunde that informed the police that I am the gang leader. I am not a cultist. The policeman that interrogated me accused me of being stubborn, disrespectful and not giving him money. I am 29 years old and a cleaner in Ikoyi.”
-vanguard

When you are feeling lonely, it is because something has triggered a memory of that feeling, not because you are in fact, isolated and alone. The brain is designed to pay attention to pain and danger, and that includes painful scary feelings; therefore loneliness gets our attention.

But then the brain tries to make sense of the feeling. Why am I feeling this way? Is it because nobody loves me? Because I am a loser? Because they are all mean? Theories about why you are feeling lonely can become confused with facts. Then it becomes a bigger problem so just realize that you are having this feeling and accept it without over reacting.

– Brock Hansen

Hey Abel, I have friends who are dating and they are both 25, although the man says he wants to marry the lady. Is it wrong to tell them to sit take time since I view the man as not being mature enough to make decisions and start a family?